Thursday 25 June 2020

4 Dhul-Qa'da - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8299

BUSINESS | 01 PENMAG | 03 SPORT | 08

Al Sulaiti sets

pace in first

race against

Leopard Racing

Classifieds

and Services

section

included

Merger was a

smooth affair:

Barwa Bank

Chairman

Amir directs to send medical aid to BelarusQNA — DOHA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has directed sending medical assistance to the Republic of Belarus as a support from the State of Qatar for the efforts of Belarus in combating the novel coro-navirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Deputy PM meets Special Envoy of Russian

President to Middle East, African CountriesDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, H E Dr. Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah, met yesterday with Special Envoy of the Russian President to the Middle East and African Countries and Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, H E Mikhail Bogdanov. During the meeting, they reviewed bilateral relations between the two friendly countries and means of enhancing and developing them.

Cabinet okays 50% staff at workplaces from July 1QNA — DOHA

The Cabinet yesterday decided to allow maximum 50 percent workforce at workplace in government and private sectors from July 1, 2020. Also as per Cabinet’s new decision, private health care providers will also be able to work with 60 percent capacity from July 1.

Prime Minister and Minister of Interior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani chaired yesterday the regular Cabinet meeting through video communication technology. Following the meeting, Minister of Justice and Acting Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs H E Dr. Issa bin Saad Al Jafali Al Nuaimi stated the following:

At the beginning of the meeting, the Cabinet heard a presentation by H E the Minister of Public Health on the latest developments to reduce the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

The Cabinet affirmed to continue the application of the precautionary measures and procedures taken in order to combat this pandemic. Within the framework of the plan to gradually lift the COVID-19 -related restrictions, the

Cabinet decided the following: It decided to amend its decision regarding reducing the number of employees present in the workplace of government entities, allowing — as needed — no more than 50 percent of the total number of employees to work at the workplace, while the rest of the employees to continue their work remotely from their homes, or when requested, as appropriate.

It decided to amend its decision to reduce the number of workers present in the work-place in the private sector, so that no more than 50 percent

of the total number of workers work in offices, and the rest work remotely from their homes. It decided to amend its decision regarding the sus-pension of medical services in health facilities, allowing these services to be provided within 60 percent of the capacity of private health care facilities, while continuing to provide emergency services. In imple-menting the said decision, the following must be taken into account: Continued implemen-tation of the previous excep-tions decided by the Cabinet in this regard. Adherence to health

requirements, precautionary measures and procedures and controls determined by the Ministry of Public Health.

The competent authorities — each in its jurisdiction — shall take the necessary measures in this regard. This decision is effective as of Wednesday, July 1, 2020, until further notice.

After that, the Cabinet con-sidered the topics on the agenda as follows:

First: It took the necessary measures to issue the following draft laws, having reviewed the recommendations of the Shura Council regarding the draft

laws: 1- A draft law amending some provisions of Law No. 1 of 1986 on the registration of pharmaceutical companies and their products. 2- A draft law amending some provisions of Law No. 12 of 2006 regarding the cancelled Municipality of Mesaieed.

Second: It approved the draft Cabinet decision to form the National Counter Terrorism Committee and define its work and remunerations. The prep-aration of the draft resolution comes within the framework of updating legislation and replaces Cabinet Decision No. 7 of 2007 on the establishment of the National Counter Ter-rorism Committee.

The draft stipulated that the National Counter Terrorism Committee shall be formed of two representatives from the Ministry of Interior, one of whom shall be the chairman of the committee, in addition to a representative from each of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Public Prosecution, the State Security Service, and the Qatar Central Bank. The committee shall assume the powers pre-scribed for it in accordance with the provisions of the Counter-Terrorism Law promulgated by Law No. 27 of 2019. �P2

Qatar University moves up in rankings for young global varsitiesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar University (QU) has seen significant improvement in international rankings for young universities. The University ranked 21 in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) 2021 Top 50 Under 50 ranking, moving up 10 places from the previous year.

QU also ranked 73rd in the Times Higher Education (THE) Young University Ranking, meaning it improved six places from the previous year when it ranked 79th.

The two reports evaluate universities that are under 50 years. QU, which was founded in 1977 is 43 years old and is a celebrated seat of learning rec-ognised by university rankings in various categories.

Whereas the QS Top 50 Under 50 measures universities

according to the same six indi-cators used for their World Uni-versity Rankings (academic rep-utation, employer reputation, research citations per faculty member, faculty/student ratio, proportion of international stu-dents, and proportion of inter-national faculty members), THE uses a modified version of their World University rankings by re-calibrating the weightings to reflect the profile of missions of young universities.

The performance indicators for THE are categorised into five areas: teaching, research, cita-tions, international outlook and industry income.

QU President, Dr. Hassan Al Derham, commented on the achievement, saying, “QU has shown consistent success and progress in a number of important international rankings in various categories.

Being recognised as one of the top young universities and showing improvement year after year in two prestigious reports is a validation of our academic integrity and an affir-mation to the efforts QU has made in our areas of focus such as research and international competitiveness.”

“If there was any a time in which the importance and influence of a highly efficient and committed research uni-versity is most apparent, it is now. Throughout this current global crisis, QU has risen to the occasion, joining global forces and offering up valuable expertise. We are proud to be included in this evaluation and will continue to strive for excel-lence and growth in all areas,” he said.

QU’s researchers are cur-rently hard at work conducting

numerous research studies on COVID-19, while also working alongside various leading insti-tutions in the State.

The University also launched a grant ‘The Concept D e v e l o p m e n t

Grant - Emergency Response (CD-ER),’ created specifically to enable the development of innovative prototypes, proc-esses and innovative platforms, in response to the current demand. Through its research

centers and colleges, prestigious faculty and steadfast com-mitment to intellectual output and scientific research, QU applies the highest standards of prevention and safety for the community. �P2

Fitch affirms Qatar rating at 'AA-'; outlook stableTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Global rating agency Fitch has affirmed Qatar’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘AA-’ with a Stable Outlook. Qatar’s ‘AA-’ ratings reflect a strong sovereign net foreign asset position, one of the world’s highest ratios of GDP per capita and a flexible public finance structure allowing for favourable debt dynamics and a robust response to limit the fiscal impact of the corona-virus pandemic, the rating agency noted yesterday.

The Fitch Ratings esti-mates that Qatar’s fiscal break-even oil price will average $48/bbl in 2019-2021, one of the lowest among Fitch-rated energy exporters.

It noted that the Qatari government and Qatar Central Bank (QCB) are implementing a QR75bn or over 10 percent of GDP, as stimulus package.

This is mainly consisting

of liquidity injections by the QCB, stock market invest-ments by government funds, support to businesses through loans and guarantees by Qatar Development Bank, and post-ponement and suspension of fees and taxes by the government.

“We estimate that only around one to two percent of GDP of the stimulus package is budgetary, and this will be offset by spending cuts else-where”, the rating agency said. The banking sector is an integral part of Qatar’s eco-nomic model and the sov-ereign has an extensive record of supporting it.

Bank profitability and capitalisation before the pan-demic were sufficient to absorb some worsening of asset quality.

The government’s strong overall asset position miti-gates some of the risks from contingent liabilities. �P2 FULL STORY ON BUSINESS P1

Prime Minister and Minister of Interior H E Sheikh

Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani chairs

the regular Cabinet meeting through video com-

munication technology.

Cabinet affirms to continue the application of the

precautionary measures and procedures taken in

order to combat the pandemic.

Cabinet allows private healthcare providers to operate at 60% of capacity

from July 1, while continuing to provide emergency services.

Draft Cabinet decision to form the National Counter Terrorism Committee

and define its work and remunerations also approved.

Qatar University ranked 21 in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) 2021 Top 50 Under 50 ranking, moving up 10 places

from the previous year.

People undergoing

drive-through test

won’t get grey

colour in EhterazQNA — DOHA

Primary Health Care Corpo-ration (PHCC) has confirmed that people who undergo testing at COVID-19 drive-through testing centers will not get grey colour in Ehteraz application, as the colour will remain green after taking the medical swab.

PHCC has established three COVID-19 drive-through testing centers in Al Waab, Al Thumama, and Leabaib, adding that only those who are invited are examined, as this service is not available to the public and it is limited only to those who meet the agreed national standards, as exami-nation will be conducted only for cases that have received the invitation.

Director of Cancer Early Screening Program at the PHCC, Dr. Sheikha Abu Sheikha, said in response to some inquiries regarding examination from inside the vehicles, where some indi-viduals who are over 50 years of age or who have a chronic disease are contacted to take their samples. She added that the persons who are invited to the test are concerned about the possibility of changing the colour in Ehteraz application from green to grey, stressing that won’t happen until the results of the tests appear, as the color of the application will be linked to the result directly.

She explained that people who won’t come to undergo tests despite receiving invi-tation won’t have any proce-dures against them.

OFFICIAL NEWS

Doha: The Shura Council partici-

pated yesterday in the third meeting

of the fourth ordinary session of the

second legislative term of the Arab

Parliament held via video confer-

encing technology. The meeting

discussed reports on the works of

the permanent committees of the

Arab parliament, which were held

during the period from June 14 to 17.

The Shura Council was represented

in these meetings by H E Yousif bin

Rashid Al Khater, H E Saqr bin Fahd

Al Muraikhi, H E Dr. Aisha bint Yousuf

Al Mannai and H E Khalid bin Abdul-

lah Al Buainain, who are members of

the Arab Parliament. -QNA

Doha: The State of Qatar strongly

condemned an explosion that

targeted security sites in north-

western Afghanistan and led to

deaths and injuries among security

personnel. The Ministry of For-

eign Affairs renewed the State of

Qatar’s firm position of rejecting

violence and terrorism regard-

less of the motives and reasons.

The statement expressed Qatar’s

condolences to the families of the

victims, the government, and peo-

ple of Afghanistan, wishing the

injured a speedy recovery. -QNA

Shura Council participates in Arab Parliament meetings

Qatar strongly condemns explosion in Afghanistan

02 THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020HOME

MoPH: 1,582 more patients recoverTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Ministry of Public Health yesterday announced the regis-tration of 1,199 new confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19), with 1,582 recoveries from the virus in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of recovered cases in the State of Qatar to 73,083.

The Ministry also announced five new deaths due to the virus. The Ministry stated that, in the last 24 hours, seven new cases were admitted to intensive care due to health complications resulting from infection with the virus, bringing the total number of critical cases that are currently in intensive care to 219.

The Ministry explained that

the new cases had the virus transmitted to them from people who had been previ-ously infected, as the Ministry of Public Health continues to conduct investigative and proactive testing, which con-tributes to early detection of cases.

The Ministry stated that the deaths recorded yesterday were receiving the necessary medical care, and were for people aged 57, 58, 77, 85 and 93 years old. The Ministry of Public Health extended its sincere condolences and great sympathy to the families of the deceased.

The Ministry confirmed that efforts to tackle the COVID-19 virus in the State of Qatar have succeeded in flattening the

curve and reducing the impact of the virus by a large per-centage thanks to the decisions of the ban, the preventive measures taken, and the awareness and cooperation of all members of society, and that there are relatively low average numbers in relation to the recorded cases of new hospital admissions.

The Ministry also reaf-firmed the necessity for the elderly or those suffering from chronic diseases and their family members to follow strict methods and precautions to reduce the risk of infection with them and work to protect them from infection by refraining from social visits, wearing the mask and cleansing the hands when near them.

MME and Mahaseel launch program to support local farmsQNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment, in cooper-ation with Mahaseel, launched the guarantee program to support local farmers by signing contracts in advance to purchase their vegetable products for the 2020/2021 season with the aim of setting guaranteed prices for the purchase of local farm products and for farmers to prepare their production plan according to the needs of the market.

The new program requires farmers to sign contracts with Mahaseel for 12 types of basic vegetables : tomatoes, cucumbers, green pepper, pepper, eggplant, Roman lettuce, American lettuce, sesame, parsley, mint, green onion and dill. The Ministry explained that the contract for the 2020/2021 season between farmers and Mahaseel to grow

the aforementioned crops will be at incentive prices for farmers, guaranteeing them the best income. The Ministry pointed out that this season will be for the first time through the guarantee program to contract for first and second class veg-etables at great prices.

The Ministry said that through the guarantee program, the average contract prices for basic vegetables is about QR5 per kilogram, along with fixed guarantee rates for the first and second class of vege-tables throughout the season, regardless of market prices.

The Ministry called on farmers to initiate registration for pre-contract early with Mahaseel to develop their pro-duction plans, sell at high guar-antee prices, and achieve dis-tinct income for their farms, adding that registration is open until October 31, 2020.

Envoys informed about gradual removal of coronavirus restrictionsQNA — DOHA

Assistant Foreign Minister and Spokesperson for the Supreme Committee for Crisis Management H E Lolwah bint Rashid Al Khater held separately a series of remote meetings with the Ambassadors of Asia and the Americas and representatives of the United Nations offices accredited to the state to inform them of the plan to gradually

remove the restrictions imposed in the State of Qatar due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and to answer their questions and inquiries about the four stages of lifting restrictions.

The ambassadors praised the measures taken by the State of Qatar to preserve the health of all, especially the provision of free high-quality healthcare to all who live on the land of Qatar. Adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for International Development, H E Khalid bin Rashid Al Mansour, and Their Excellencies directors of continental departments in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs attended the meetings.

Fitch affirms Qatar rating at ‘AA-’; outlook stable

FROM PAGE 1

“We estimate that sovereign net foreign assets (reserves plus other government assets less external debt) rose to 130 percent of GDP ($239bn) in 2019 from 105 percent of GDP in 2018, largely reflecting the estimated assets of the QIA, which were buoyed by strong asset market returns. We expect that the government would be able to obtain significant liquidity from these assets if the need arose, for example in case of a systemic loss of confidence in the banking sector,” the rating agency said.

The QCB’s reserves also rose to nearly $40bn or five months of current external payments in 2019 on the back of a modest current account surplus, from over $30bn in 2018. The financial market downturn likely created valuation losses for Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) in early 2020 but conditions have since improved.

Cabinet okays 50% staff at workplaces from July 1

FROM PAGE 1

Third: It approved the Cabinet’s draft decision to amend some provisions of Decision No. 35 of 2014 on the establishment of a committee for organising heavy transport by adding a representative from the Ministry of Municipality and Environment to the membership of the committee.

Fourth: The Cabinet gave approval to: A — A draft protocol amending the air transport agreement between the govern-ments of the State of Qatar and the

United States of America. B — A draft memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the field of central banking between the Qatar Central Bank and the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Fifth: The Cabinet reviewed the results of the second extraordinary meeting of the trade cooperation committee of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, which was held on April 16 via video con-ferencing technology and took the appropriate decision regarding it.

Assistant Foreign Minister and Spokesperson for the Supreme Committee for Crisis Management, H E Lolwah bint Rashid Al Khater, during the meeting.

QU moves up in rankings for young global varsities

FROM PAGE 1

Earlier this month it was announced that QU ranked 245th globally and fifth among Arab universities in the QS World University Ranking 2021. QU also ranked 52nd in the Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings 2020 for the third year in a row.

In 2017, QU released a five-year strategy for the years 2018-2022, which mapped out the routes to achieving continuing per-formance excellence and builds on key areas of education, research, institution and engagement, while taking into consid-eration the plans and aspirations of Qatar National Vision 2030.

H E Lolwah bint Rashid Al Khater held series of remote meetings with the envoys of Asia, the Americas and representatives of the UN offices.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs bids farewell to Indonesian Ambassador

03THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020 HOME

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi met yesterday with the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the State of Qatar, H E Muhammad Basri Sidehabi, on the occasion of the end of his tenure in the country. H E the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs thanked the Ambassador for his efforts in supporting and strengthening bilateral relations, wishing him success in his new assignments.

Coronavirus crisis an opportunity to share, promote human rightsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Chairman of National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) and Secretary-General of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Insti-tutions, Dr. Ali bin Smaikh Al Marri (pictured), has said that as much as the coronavirus pandemic poses threats to everyone in this world it is also an opportunity for the global coalition, national human rights institutions, regional networks, and United Nations agencies to share best practices to ensure the promotion and respect of human rights.

This came in a speech by Al Marri, at the opening of the annual meeting of the Tripartite Partnership between the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Development Program and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Insti-tutions in Geneva.

Al Marri invited the partici-pants in the annual meeting for the future of cooperation in the process of promoting and pro-tecting human rights. “It is always a great honour for me, as Secretary-General of the Global Alliance, to be part of an ambi-tious and purposeful project such as the tripartite meeting between our institutions, which is excep-tional in many respects.”

He stressed that the virtual

tripartite partnership meeting is considered historic, given that it was held in light of the unprecedented exceptional cir-cumstances the world is expe-riencing due to the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

“The meeting highlights our ability to adapt to changes in the world. This meeting stresses the strength of our mutual com-munication as human beings and partners and confirms our will as a team to build a better tomorrow together.”

Al Marri indicated that the meeting comes for a strategic discussion between the global alliance and representative regional networks on some of the major developments in the United Nations system and with regard to important global trends on human rights.

The annual meeting of the Tripartite Partnership (TPP) to support national human rights institutions (NHRIs) aims to

enhance cooperation between the United Nations system and national human rights institu-tions, its regional networks and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) by promoting the exchange of information, good practices and challenges.

The meeting also provides an opportunity for national human rights institutions to interact directly with the United Nations system, and provide important local, regional and global experiences and knowledge to United Nations partners. The annual meeting of the Tripartite Partnership, dis-cussed in its first day, the tackling of coronavirus, strategic planning processes and partnership opportunities in Africa, the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe. It also discussed in an open discussion session the role of national human rights institutions.

Katara launches Novel and Fine Art contestTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Cultural Village Foundation - Katara has announced the launch of Novel and Fine Art Competition as part of the Katara Summer Events 2020.

For this contest, Katara is inviting artists to submit paintings of covers of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel 2020 publications for unpub-lished novels, published novels and unpublished novels for

boys. The winner of the best

cover design for each novel will receive $500 and the winning novel cover paintings along with the name of the artist will be published.

Those interested to join the contest should submit 19cm long and 16cm wide painting which can be enlarged while maintaining the aspect ratio. The painting should be sub-mitted via email in JPG format

with no signature on the canvas. The participating artist can

submit more than one painting for more than one novel cat-egory. The painting should reflect and express the content of the novel.

Participation will be through the website of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel: www.katarnovels.com or via email: covers@kataranovels.com. Deadline for submission is on July 10.

The Chairman of National Human Rights Committee and Secretary-General of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, Dr Ali bin Smaikh Al Marri, spoke at the meeting of Tripartite Partnership between the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Development Program and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions in Geneva.

People urged to stay vigilant against virusFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

As the country is halfway through phase one of lifting COVID-19 restrictions, it is important to keep taking precautions against the spread of virus to move to the next phase, said Dr. Yousef Al Maslamani, Medical Director, Hamad General Hospital (HGH). “If (precautions) are not taken it will be difficult to move to the next level of lifting restrictions,” he told The Peninsula.

“We have started to see a decrease in new cases and high number of people are recov-ering from COVID-19, yet this is a critical phase and it is essential that we adhere to pre-ventive measures strictly,” said Dr. Al Maslamani.

“We all have a role to play, everyone should take respon-sibility and it will help us move from one phase to the other,” he added. Dr. Al Maslamani also emphasised that it is every

individuals’ right that the places they visit apply COVID-19 pre-ventive measures including checking visitors’ health status on the virus-tracing mobile app, Ehteraz; checking body tem-perature; use of face masks; and adhering to social distance.

He highlighted that precau-tionary measures remain in force throughout the four phases of lifting restrictions.

“Protect yourself, protect our family and protect the com-munity from COVID-19,” he added.

“Some measures might have to continue to be in force for the foreseeable future. Special pro-visions are made for groups most at risk of and vulnerable to infection to ensure they are pro-tected, and that their essential needs are met. It is important that people with chronic diseases and elderly are protected,” said Dr. Al Maslamani.

The COVID-19 Qatar National Response Plan has set

clear conditions through the evidence-based, gradual and controlled lifting of restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan to gradually lift COVID-19 restrictions aims to restore normal life while continuing to protect people, society and economy of the country. Restrictions will be lifted in four phases in accordance with a set timetable.

The Ministry of Public Health continues to track and trace every COVID-19 case in the community.

“We are monitoring, we have introduced the most effi-cient ways to protect people. We will provide medical care to infected patients. But it is essential that everyone take responsibility at individual level and curb the spread of COVID-19,” said Dr. Al Maslamani.

The first phase of easing COVID-19 restrictions began on June 15, it will be followed by a second phase from July 1.

04 THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020HOME

CNA-Q celebrates graduation of 453 students in virtual event

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

College of the North Atlantic - Qatar (CNA-Q) held a spectacular virtual graduation ceremony for 453 students yesterday. The ceremony was held under the patronage of H E Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulwahed Ali Al Hammadi, Minister of Education and Higher Education. It was CNA-Q’s 16th graduation ceremony.

Students graduated from over 35 programs, which are each tailored to the needs of Qatar’s economy. The number of graduates in each discipline include: 232 from Business Management and Information Technology, 187 from Engi-neering Technology and Indus-trial Trades, and 34 from Health Sciences.

“It is with a great sense of pride that I watched these students celebrate their success,” said College of the North Atlantic–Qatar Pres-ident Dr. Khalifa bin Nasser Al Khalifa. “It has not been an easy time these past few months, but these students remained focused, and persevered, and rose to the challenge. This lesson will serve them well in the years ahead. These students will become the leaders that Qatar has envisioned in the National Vision 2030.”

Thousands of people watched on the official CNA-Q YouTube channel as elated students appeared on screen, dressed in their graduation regalia. The event included congratulatory mes-sages and well wishes from CNA-Q alumni and instructors.

Graduates were also extended congratula-tions on their academic accomplishments by

H E Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulwahed Ali Al Hammadi, Minister of Education and Higher Education. “You have proven your ability and determination to achieve your goals through reaching what you have been seeking for many years, which culminated in your obtaining degrees and graduation certificates under

exceptional circumstances imposed on us by the coronavirus pandemic,” said H E the Minister.

“I congratulate you on your success, and am hopeful for a bright future for you, and that your distinguished path and experience con-tribute to enhancing your contribution to building and elevat ing this country that gave you so much.”

Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, Chair of CNA-Q’s Board of Trustees: “Graduates, you are ready for the future. CNA-Q has

equipped you with the knowledge, and skills you will need to make Qatar a leader. I am con-fident you will make a significant impact on the world, based on the teachings of CNA-Q.”

CNA-Q opened in 2002 after a world-wide search to bring the best technical and voca-tional training to the State of Qatar, in support of the booming energy and industry sector. CNA-Q has graduated over 5000 students from more than 35 certificate and diploma programs tailored to meet the needs of Qatar’s growing and changing economy, in the fields of: Business Man-agement and Information Technology, Engi-neering Technology and Industrial Trades and Health Sciences.

Dr. Khalifa bin Nasser Al Khalifa, President, College of the North Atlantic – Qatar,

QU’s digital transformation strategy helped to face COVID-19 challengeSANAULLAH ATAULLAHTHE PENINSULA

President of Qatar University, Dr. Hassan Al Derham, has said that the university has received positive indication about online learning which was launched after emergence of COVID-19 and it is ready for any scenario to welcome the next semester.

“Now we have finished the semester. We went through the examinations. The feedback which we received from our faculties and students as well as the evaluation gave good and positive indication about the online learning experience,” said Dr. Hassan Al Derham.

He said that Qatar Uni-versity is evaluating now dif-ferent scenario to come back for fall semester 2020 and it will be ready for any scenario that will have to deal.

Dr. Al Derham was speaking in a panel discussion on ‘how do we best measure school and system responses to the crisis? What can we learn from this to build better, more resilient systems for the future?’.

The panel discussion was held yesterday under an online seminar, a three day event

which is being organised by WISE of Qatar Foundation.

“Higher education faced challenges of COVID-19 epi-demic and got opportunity as well. This epidemic taught us that the entire world is inter-connected like a small village so if any such thing happens anywhere, the rest part of the world is also affected,” said Al Derham. He said that Qatar has financial resources, ability and flexibility to response swiftly to such challenges.

“Qatar University already started three years ago digital transformation strategy so when COVID-19 emerged, we were almost ready to react within a couple of days in switching from classroom teaching to online learning system,” said Al Derham.

He said that it was chal-lenging for students and faculty members in the beginning but they took the challenges and moved towards the new mode of teaching. “During first two weeks we also changed the mode of tests and evaluation adjusting accordingly,” said Al Derham.

He said that the key word is to be flexible, lenient and react fast to meet the challenges caused by COVID-19 to the edu-

cation sector.“The most important thing

for higher education and uni-versities is to focus on making plan and strategy based on workforce and how to provide graduate attributes and skills to workforce,” said Al Derham.

He said that in the world of rapid advancement of the tech-nology, the graduates should have general skills on how to become a proactive.

“When we started the trans-formation of digital education three years ago in Qatar University some colleagues were reluctant to move in this direction”

“But now this epidemic gave opportunity to see how this world is changing very fast and most of our colleagues are on board to move on and we have to move fast to meet the challenges,” said Al Derham.

The panel discussion was moderated by Clare Shine, Vice President and Chief Program Officer, Salzburg.

The panelists included Olli Pekkah Heinonen, Director General, Finnish National Agency for Education: Staneala Beckley, Chair, Sierra Leone Teaching Service Commission and Dr. Hassan Al Derham, President, Qatar University.

President of Qatar University, Dr. Hassan Al Derham, addressing a panel discussion held yesterday under an online seminar which is being organised by WISE of Qatar Foundation.

Preparations ongoing for MIA exhibitionRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

Preparations are in full swing for the exhibition “A Falcon’s Eye: Tribute to Sheikh Saoud Al Thani” at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA).

Yesterday, MIA shared via social media a glimpse of the ongoing prep-arations for the exciting exhibition.

“Installation of the amazing exhi-bition ‘’A Falcon’s Eye.’’ Please follow the preventative measures to move forward the quarantine stages and enable us to see you soon,” MIA tweeted yesterday along with photos inside the gallery.

“A Falcon’s Eye: Tribute to Sheikh Saoud Al Thani” was originally slated to open to the public on March 25, but the much awaited exhibition was deferred due to COVID-19 which halted many important events and activities in the country and around the world.

In an earlier statement, MIA said the exhibition “celebrates the out-standing accomplishments of one of Qatar’ greatest collectors who was largely responsible for laying the foundation for Qatar Museum’s world class collections.”

When the exhibition opens, the public will be able to see “more than 300 outstanding art works from pre-historic fossils and Egyptian antiquities to Orientalist paintings and master-pieces of the history of photography in a spectacular display following the concept of ancient (Renaissance) “cabinet of curiosities” reflecting Sheikh Saoud’s fascination with both natural history and the art world.”

“A Falcon’s Eye” is one of the array of diverse exhibitions museum-goers can look forward to from Qatar Museums as it begins reopening its museums. Three days ago, it

announced it will reopen a number of its museums and heritage sites to the public on July 1, in accordance with recommendations from Qatar’s Health Protection & Communicable Disease Control office of the Min-istry of Public Health. MIA is one of the museums scheduled to reopen on July 1.

Other museums and heritage sites which were announced to reopen on the second phase of the gradual lifting of restrictions for COVID-19 in the country included the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, the Garage Gallery at the Doha Fire Station, Al

Zubarah, Al Jassasiya and Barzan Towers.

The special exhibition Picasso’s Studios, organised in partnership with the Musée National Picasso-Paris, will be on view at the Garage Gallery at the Doha Fire Station starting July 1 as well as the permanent collections of MIA and Mathaf.

Meanwhile, the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) earlier announced that it would launch four virtual exhi-bitions in various themes including NMoQ Creates Together, Habitats and Shelter, Qatar’s Culinary Journey, and Mal Lawal.

Ongoing preparations for “A Falcon’s Eye” exhibition at the Museum of Islamic Art. Pics taken from MIA’s official Twitter account.

QU receives 14 research grants from QNRFQNA — DOHA

Qatar University (QU) responded to an emergency call by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) about coro-navirus, when the faculty members and researchers applied many proposals to address their research areas, also to support the national research priorities objective.

QU has been awarded 14 pro-posals among total of 21 awarded proposals by QNRF to all institutions inside Qatar.

The awards were for different col-leges and centers inside QU. The

research centers received five awards, two awards for the Bio-medical Research Center, two awards for the Center of Advanced Materials and one award for the Social and Eco-nomic Survey Research Institute. The other awards where distributed among QU colleges and other centers.

The big portion of the awards was in supporting the health research areas, where QU received nine awards under the health research area, three for the social and cultural life, one for transport and communi-cation research area and one award for the economy research area.

Director of Research Support at QU Prof. Mohamed Al Salem said: “The rapid response call is an emer-gency call launched by Qatar National Research Fund that is designed to study sudden and sig-nificant situations and help Qatari society and its institutions mitigate their impact. It’s really challenging and innovative to write proposals during this international pandemic, we are proud of Qatar University success in this call along with the other calls and research opportu-nities that tackles the current pan-demic COVID-19.”

CNA-Q’s 16th graduation ceremony was held under the patronage of H E Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulwahed Ali Al Hammadi, Minister of Education and Higher Education. Students graduated from over 35 programs, which are each tailored to the needs of Qatar’s economy. The number of graduates in each discipline include: 232 from Business Management and Information Technology, 187 from Engineering Technology and Industrial Trades, and 34 from Health Sciences.

05THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020 HOME

Take education funding seriously or face a ‘human tragedy’, Gordon Brown warns at Qatar Foundation conferenceTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The former Prime Minister of UK, Gordon Brown, has warned the underfunding of education means “a human tragedy is unfolding”, at an international conference organised by Qatar Foundation’s global education initiative.

Speaking at ‘Education Dis-rupted, Education Reimagined Part II’ – a three-day online event hosted by the World Innovation Summit for Edu-cation (WISE) – Brown, a UN Special Envoy for Global Edu-cation, voiced his fears that “hope will die” among millions of children and young people if they are denied access to learning because their countries cannot afford to give them the opportunity.

He called for solutions, including debt relief for the poorest nations to allow them to invest in education and health, saying: “I harbour the aspiration that we will be in a world where we are developing

the potential of all young people, but we also have to rec-ognise that we have an edu-cation emergency impacting the life chances of millions of children around the world.

“We know that $180 a year is spent on the education of a sub-Saharan child, compared to $5,000-$7,000 a year on a child in Western and other countries and that 70-80 percent of young people in countries like South Korea, Japan, and Singapore can go into some form of higher edu-cation, while in an African country it is less than five percent. It’s not just about what then happens to education systems — it’s about what happens to children and young people as human beings.

“It’s said you can survive 40 days without food, eight days without water, and eight minutes without air, but you can’t survive for a second without hope. Hope doesn’t just die when food convoys cannot get through or ventilators are not available; it

can die when young people feel they don’t have a chance to plan for, or dream of, the future. And we have to face the fact that it will die unless we take the nec-essary action.”

Brown told the conference that education is being “crowded out” as other areas are prioritised for expenditure and aid, and that low and middle-income countries with “already low and meager

education budgets” could see them cut further, described this as “a recipe for disaster”.

“As well as persuading coun-tries that they cannot build for a long-term future without investing in education, we have to remind them that education unlocks opportunities for employment,” he said.

“We must persuade them that not cutting education budgets is not just in the interests

of education, it is in the interests of quality of life.

“Financing education has to be taken seriously, because we cannot send teachers into class-rooms without the resources they need, and children into schools without the necessary backing. A human tragedy is unfolding if we do nothing and leave education completely underfunded, lacking the resources to enable children to flourish in the future.”

Speaking about his hope that “we can be the first generation in history where we can say every child goes to school”. Brown emphasised that education cannot be reformed without global cooperation, saying: “Sci-entists, technicians, researchers, virologists, and immunologists all want to work together to fight COVID-19. The same is true of teachers, educators, and others in education to coordinate a response to the crisis that it faces.

“We know we have a chal-lenge ahead, so let us work together to reimagine a new

future and put pressure on to ensure the proper financing of education. We can make a dif-ference. I think back to the ‘space race’, with the US and Russia vying to get to the Moon quickest, and then, in the 1990s, they came together to create the International Space Station.

“If we can cooperate in outer space, surely we can find better ways to cooperate on earth and build the future for education that we all dream about, and that every child in the world deserves.”

The conference saw partici-pants given an overview of the 2020 Global Education Moni-toring (GEM) Report by its director, Manos Antoninis of Unesco. He said that “identity, background, and ability still dictate education opportunities”, highlighting that children with disabilities are two-and-a-half times more likely never to go to school than their peers and, in at least 20 countries, no girls in poor rural areas complete secondary school.

Josoor Institute’s revamped website offers free access to expert case studiesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Josoor Institute — a FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 legacy programme — has a newly revamped website which features a host of free research resources, including 25 case studies about the region’s sports and events industries.

The information has been made freely available in order to support the development of the industries in Qatar and across the region. Anyone who registers with the website will be able to download the content.

Selected case study titles include: ‘Considering Qatar’s World Cup Venue Strategy as a

Framework for the Future’, ‘Mo Salah, Egyptian Hero: The Social and Commercial Role of Celebrity Endorsement in Football’, and ‘The Use of Broadcasting and Social Media at Local and Mega Events Across Qatar’.

The case studies were developed and carried out in collaboration with faculty experts from Georgetown Uni-versity in Qatar, the University of Liverpool and Leeds Beckett University, along with other experts and senior practitioners in the sports and events industries.

The case studies are cur-rently available to view in English, with Arabic versions set

to be available in the coming months. By allowing sports and events professionals access to the case studies, Josoor Institute aims to generate insights into emerging trends that will bring new understanding to the sector, while also inviting feedback that triggers new questions and further investigation.

Afraa Al Noaimi, Executive Director, Josoor Institute, said: “By working with world-leading academics and a vast array of industry leaders, Josoor Institute is leading the effort to enhance knowledge of the sports and events industries in Qatar and across the region.

“We believe this in-depth

research will prove to be an essential source of information for companies and organisations. In addition, it will help indi-viduals in the sports and events sectors — along with academics,

researchers and experts — to enhance their knowledge.”

Josoor Institute’s research efforts support its educational offerings and provide local and regional context to its

programmes and workshops. Learning has continued at Josoor Institute even amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, with its diploma programmes being delivered online since March.

A file photo of graduates of Josoor Diploma Programme in Sports Management.

I harbour the aspiration that we will be in a world where we are developing the potential of all young people, but we also have to recognise that we have an education emergency impacting the life chances of millions of children around the world.

Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of UK

Ooredoo launches eShop promotion for new postpaid customersTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Ooredoo, Qatar’s leading tele-communications operator, yesterday announced a promotion for new customers when they sign up for new Shahry and Qatarna 5G plans via the Ooredoo eShop.

In order to encourage cus-tomers to experience just how quick, easy and efficient it is to use its digital channels, and further support the #StayHome-WithOoredoo campaign, Ooredoo is offering all new cus-tomers who sign up to a new Shahry 5G or Qatarna 5G plan via the eShop an amazing 20 percent off the regular monthly plan price for six months.

The promotion, which will run until July 23, 2020, is valid for all new Shahry and Qatarna 5G packs and means new cus-tomers signing up for a new Shahry 5G S pack will pay just QR88 per month instead of the regular price of QR110, while customers choosing a Shahry 5G XL pack will pay QR220 instead of QR275. Customers opting for

Qatarna 5G Silver will pay QR304 per month instead of QR380, and new Qatarna 5G Platinum packs will cost just QR680 per month instead of QR850.

Both new Shahry 5G and Qatarna 5G plans will come with entertainment and lifestyle ben-efits; Shahry customers can choose one subscription from Starz Play and ErosNow, as well as Urban Point, while Qatarna customers can choose from beIN Connect, Starz Play and Urban Point. Customers can also access Netflix via their smartphones and have their Netflix subscriptions added to their Ooredoo bills.

Speaking of the new

promotion, Sabah Rabiah Al Kuwari, Director PR at Ooredoo, said: “Staying at home is the best way we can keep ourselves, our families and our communities safe during this challenging time. We’re pleased to be able to offer our cus-tomers a quick, easy and effi-cient way to subscribe to our great new Shahry 5G and Qatarna 5G plans via digital channels, allowing them to access essentials they need without having to leave the house. This promotion will give customers even greater value for money; something we all appreciate, especially now.”

RAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

Doha Film Institute (DFI) is inviting filmmakers seeking for support for their projects to apply for the new cycle of the Institute's Grants programme.

"Submissions are now open for our new grants cycle. If you're looking for support for your nar-rative/documentary film, TV or web series project, this is your chance," DFI tweeted yesterday.

Those interested can visit DFI's website to check out eligi-bility requirements and submit their projects. Deadline for sub-mission is on July 7, it added.

The DFI Grants programme has evolved as a key initiative for identifying new cinematic voices and talent and discovering uni-versally resonant stories. The pro-gramme is focused on supporting

the region’s filmmakers to realise their storytelling aspirations by elevating original voices in cinema, promote creative inter-action and provide creative support throughout the film-making cycle to establish a robust film ecosystem in the Arab world.

First- and second-time directors from the MENA region are eligible for DFI’s devel-opment, production and post-production funding for feature-length projects. Production funding is available to short films from the MENA region; devel-opment funding for screenwriters from the MENA region for TV series; and production funding to directors from the MENA region for web series. Established MENA directors can apply for post-production funding for feature-length projects. Post-production funding is also

available to international first- and second-time filmmakers for feature-length projects.

Since its establishment, DFI's Grants programme has already helped numerous film projects in the region and around the world become a reality. Its pre-vious cycle witnessed an unprec-edented slate of 42 projects by first-and-second-time, and established MENA filmmakers from around the world and emerging names from the region have been selected for the region’s leading film funding pro-gramme that cultivates the next generation of voices in film. The projects covered a wide range of film productions including feature, documentary, short film, and TV series.

More information can be had at https://dohafilminstitute.com/financing/grants/guidelines

Submissions for new DFI grants cycle open

06 THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020HOME

Ford Mustang model of 2019 recalledTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in cooperation with Almana Motors Company, dealer of Ford in Qatar, has announced the recall of Ford Mustang model of 2019, over a malfunction in the “not in park” warning message and asso-ciated audible chime that might disappear too quickly when turning off the vehicle.

The recall campaign comes within the framework of the Ministry’s continuous efforts to protect consumers and ensure that dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.

The Ministry said that it will coordinate with dealer to follow up on maintenance and repair works and will communicate with customers to ensure that they carried out the necessary repairs.

Total and QSTP extendpartnership agreementTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) — a part of Qatar Foundation Research, Devel-opment, and Innovation — has signed an extension to their existing agreement with Total, allowing Total Research Center-Qatar (TRC-Q) to continue their research and development operations in QSTP Park and Free Zone for another ten years.

Founded in 2009 in order to pursue leading edge and innovative research projects, TRC-Q has established opera-tional laboratories at QSTP for their geochemistry, acid stim-ulation, refining and chemistry research, and sustainable projects, as well as patented instruments and proprietary tools developed by the research team.

The relationship between Total and QSTP has flourished due to their shared ambition to develop sustainable solutions and support Qatar’s National

Vision. Both organisations have been aligned in their efforts to bridge and strengthen ties between the various sectors and industries, particularly energy, research and environment, and to build strong bridges and interactions in order to achieve business sustainability and innovation.

“We started our journey at QSTP ten years ago, with the vision of innovation and excel-lence in R&D. We made a unique commitment to develop homegrown solutions for our

local operational challenges, whilst supporting Qatar’s vision of establishing a knowledge-based economy,” said Yousef Al Jaber, Vice-President Inno-vation and Change Man-agement, and Acting Director of TRC-Q. “With the help of QSTP, we have been able to develop a real expertise that leverages the global research capacity of Total at a worldwide scale and directly benefits our partners in Qatar.”

Yosouf Abdulrahman Al Salehi, Executive Director QSTP,

said: “We are delighted to extend this highly successful partnership with our friends from Total for another decade. Their work in a range of areas here in Qatar over the past decade has been so trans-formative, improving the knowledge of both the local and global oil and gas industry through the addition of topics related to sustainable development.”

He added: “QSTP has been proud to play its part in Qatar

Foundation’s Research, Devel-opment and Innovation (QF RDI) division and we are very much looking forward to the exciting years ahead in the vital field of RDI. In fact, RDI is a journey as vital as any Qatar will ever take. One of the next global races will be for minds and talents in technology devel-opment . Total will certainly be playing a leading role in that significant RDI work here in Qatar."

“QSTP provides a great

environment for research and innovation, and its proximity to world class universities is an added advantage. This has given us a great platform for TRC-Q to thrive,” said Laurent Wolff-sheim, Managing Director of Total E&P Golfe, and Country Chair. “In 2019, we celebrated a milestone with a decade of research and innovation of TRC-Q at the QSTP, and we look forward to cementing our part-nership with QSTP for another decade,” he said.

FROM LEFT: Laurent Wolffsheim, Managing Director of Total E&P Golfe, and Country Chair; Yousef Al Jaber, Vice-President Innovation and Change Management, and Acting Director of TRC-Q; and Yosouf Abdulrahman Al Salehi, Executive Director QSTP, signing Total-QSTP lease agreement extension.

QU-CPH students organise global webinarTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar University’s College of Pharmacy (QU-CPH) and Qatar Pharmacy Undergraduate Society (QPhUS) conducted a webinar entitled “COVID-19 Creating Opportunities from a Crisis for Pharmacy Students: Discussion from Around the Globe”.

The event was held success-fully via WebEx platform with more than 100 attendees from around the world and more than 300 views on YouTube.

Speakers at the event included student leaders and members of pharmacy associ-ations that are part of the Inter-national Pharmaceutical Stu-dents’ Federation. They were: Hend Al Naimi, QPhUS Pres-ident and CPH fourth profes-sional year student; Ghulam Mujtaba, Member of Pakistan Pharmaceutical Students’ Fed-eration (PPHSF); Wafa Othman

Member of Palestinian Pharma-ceutical Students’ Federation An-Najah National University (PSFNNU); Melissa Kieley, Canadian Association of Pharmacy Students and Interns Contact Person (CAPSI); and Ismail Jomha, Vice-President and Chairperson of the Profes-sional Development Committee at the Lebanese Pharmacy Stu-dents’ Association (LPSA).

The webinar aimed to share the different experiences by pharmacy students around the world and how pharmacy stu-dents around the globe created new stories of success despite the unprecedented circum-stances the world is facing.

The opening remarks were delivered by CPH Assistant Dean for Students Affairs, Dr. Alla El Awaisi. She said: “This global pandemic has affected us all in so many different ways, but the beauty is that within every crisis contains seeds of

opportunities. Sometime during the crisis, it might be difficult to think but the key is to pause and reflect on what happened. How do we cope with this crisis then, what were the lessons learned and what opportunities this crisis created? How would we deal with it if it continued? How can we prepare to respond rapidly and effectively?”

She expressed her delight listening to the different pres-entations saying: “It was really interesting listening to pharmacy students from dif-ferent places around the globe about the challenges they faced and how they managed to create opportunities from this crisis.

"Well done to our future pharmacy leaders for con-cluding their semesters success-fully, we are really proud of you.”

Hend Al Naimi talked about how students at Qatar

University, especially College of Pharmacy, succeeded in taking an advantage of the COVID-19 crisis and created opportunities. She applauded the enormous effort that has been done to succeed this chal-lenging semester.

She added: “The idea of the global webinar came after a special academic semester full of challenges and opportunities at the same time. We were curious about how other future pharmacists around the world coped with this pandemic to continue their education. Due to COVID-19, we got the chance to meet other pharmacy stu-dents and discuss this topic vir-tually. It was an exceptional webinar and I was impressed with the number of attendees and the positive feedback we received.”

Melissa Kieley from Canada said: “I am very thankful to have participated in this webinar

which united dedicated pharmacy students from across the world to share challenges, bring forth ideas and how we can make the most of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I feel as though this webinar has provided me with a global perspective and I look forward to bringing the many ideas and tips I have learned back to implement within CAPSI. This opportunity has opened my eyes to the passion

for health care that is had by pharmacy students from around the globe!”

The session was moderated by. Bassant Elkattan, a B.Sc pharmacy graduate 2020 and QPhUS contact person who concluded by saying: “COVID-19 pandemic has touched and changed every aspect of our lives, it’s being said that being challenged is inevitable but it’s us who decides the outcome.”

A snapshot showing participants during the webinar.

QRCS TDC promotes community awareness against COVID-19THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has continued to undertake its essential role of health education for the people of Qatar, particularly in relation to prevention of the coronavirus (COVID-19) infection.

Since the crisis began, QRCS’s Training and Devel-opment Center (TDC) redoubled its awareness and preventive work under the umbrella of the Ministry of Public Health’s (MoPH) labour and communi-cation committee.

A multifaceted action plan was outlined to promote healthy behaviour and hygiene awareness among people of dif-ferent walks of life, to control the coronavirus and other infec-tious diseases.

The plan is implemented in

coordination with all the depart-ments and divisions of QRCS, including awareness publica-tions, training courses, and edu-cative lectures at the center, Workers’ Health Centers, and worksites.

These informative events are instructed by 10 trainers and 6 volunteers, including infection control officers and health edu-cators. The content of the lec-tures is taken from reliable ref-erences and taught in various languages to match the back-grounds of the trainees.

Among the beneficiaries covered by the lectures were QRCS volunteers and staff, MoPH volunteers, public and international schools, com-panies, government organiza-tions, ministries, charities, and foreign communities, in addition to those working at the

Mekaines quarantine facility.Over the course of the

COVID-19 response, 268 lec-tures and training courses were organised for the benefit of 3,243 volunteers, cleaning workers, expatriate laborers, security individuals, and other professionals.

During sessions, the attendance are introduced to the origin, spread, transmission, symptoms, and treatment of COVID-19. Special focus is put on personal and collective pro-tection, psychological support, use of personal protective equipment (PPE), and swapping.

Other achievements included publishing six types of awareness printouts, totalling 730 touchless stickers and fixed and animated promotional materials, designing a COVID-19 awareness brochure in three

languages (Arabic, English, and Hindi), and posting it on the websites of QRCS and other interested companies and organizations.

As regards distance learning, three online workshops were produced in Arabic and English, recording over 15,000 views. Also, there were four preventive workshops (live), each recording 2,500 views within 30 minutes.

The list of productions extends to include a series of 13

sessions titled “Protect Your Health – COVID-19”, as well as over 30 health messages on pre-ventive tips and healthy fasting, with a wide reach on QRCS’s social media platforms.

In cooperation with QRCS’s Volunteering and Local Devel-opment Division, TDC developed an innovative face shield, which was produced by Qatar Scientific Club (QSC), as a contribution to the coronavirus (COVID-19) control efforts.

QRCS officials conducting a health education session.

The relationship between Total and QSTP has flourished due to their shared ambition to develop sustainable solutions and support Qatar’s National Vision. Both organisations have been aligned in their efforts to bridge and strengthen ties between the various sectors and industries.

WCM-Q research highlights physical inactivity, sedentary lifestyles in MENA regionTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) have published a comprehensive study on the status of sedentary behaviour and physical activity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The research discovered that almost 50 percent of adults and 75 percent of young people in MENA countries did not meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended levels of physical activity. WHO recom-mends 150 minutes of moderate physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week for adults and 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity daily for children and youth. Lack of physical activity is a key risk

factor for obesity and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as type 2 diabetes and car-diovascular disease, which fre-quently lead to severe life-lim-iting complications and pre-mature death.

Dr. Ravinder Mamtani, WCM-Q’s Professor of Healthcare Policy and Research,

Professor of Medicine and Vice Dean for Student Affairs, Popu-lation Health, and Lifestyle Med-icine, is one of the authors of the study. He said: “Non-communi-cable diseases now account for around 41 million deaths worldwide each year, which works out at 71 percent of all deaths. Lack of physical activity,

particularly among young people, should therefore be viewed as nothing less than a global public health emergency, as this research makes very clear.”

The MENA region has some of the highest rates of NCDs in the world, and the second-highest prevalence of diabetes (10.8 percent) of any world region. The study, entitled, ‘Physical activity and sedentary behaviour in the Middle East and North Africa: An overview of sys-tematic reviews and meta-analysis’, has been published in Scientific Reports, an open access journal belonging to the pres-tigious Nature group of publications.

The paper is based on detailed analysis of seven scien-tific systematic reviews and 229

primary studies on physical activity and sedentary behaviour in the MENA region published since the year 2000. The 20 MENA countries included in the study are Algeria, Bahrain, Dji-bouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The research team then used sophisticated statistical meta-analysis techniques to interpret the data collected from the published reviews.

The first author of the study, Dr. Sonia Chaabane, Projects Specialist in WCM-Q’s Institute for Population Health (IPH), said: “It is important to further under-stand the personal, social and environmental barriers to physical activity, which will aid

and facilitate effective, locally informed interventions.”

WCM-Q researchers who worked on the study with Dr. Mamtani and Dr. Chaabane are Dr. Sohaila Cheema, Director of IPH and Assistant Professor of Healthcare Policy and Research; Dr. Karima Chaabna, Population Health and Communication Spe-cialist and Instructor in Healthcare Policy and Research; and Dr. Amit Abraham, Instructor in Healthcare Policy and Research and Projects Specialist.

Dr. Cheema said: “The study demonstrates a critical need for urgent public health interven-tions across the entire MENA region, especially among young people, to allow for higher levels of physical activity and to dis-courage sedentary lifestyles."

FROM LEFT: Dr. Ravinder Mamtani, Dr. Sohaila Cheema, Dr. Karima Chaabna, Dr. Sonia Chaabaneand Dr. Amit Abraham.

Rain aftermath in Turkey

07THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020 GULF / MIDDLE EAST

UN chief, European MPs ask Israel to ditch annexation plans

REUTERS — BRUSSELS/LONDON

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Israel yesterday to abandon its plans to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank, warning that it threatened the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

“If implemented, annex-ation would constitute a most serious violation of interna-tional law, grievously harm the prospect of a two-State solution and undercut the possibilities of a renewal of negotiations,” Guterres told the UN Security Council. “I call on the Israeli Government to abandon its annexation plans,” he said.

Guterres called on the Middle East Quartet of medi-ators - the United States, Russia,

the European Union and the United Nations - “to take up our mandated mediation role and find a mutually agreeable framework for the parties to re-engage, without preconditions, with us and other key states.”

Any Israeli move to annex parts of the West Bank would be “fatal” for Middle East peace hopes and must be prevented, if necessary with counter-measures, more than 1,000 lawmakers from across Europe said in a letter to European governments.

The June 23 letter, signed by 1,080 lawmakers from 25 countries and made public yes-terday, raises parliamentary concerns about US President Donald Trump’s Israeli-Pales-tinian peace plan. The signa-tories said annexation would

break international law. Israeli Prime Minister Ben-

jamin Netanyahu has set July 1 as the date for the start of cabinet discussions on moving forward on annexation, in line with Trump’s plan that envisages Israeli sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank and Palestinian statehood under strict conditions.

“Such a move (annexation) will be fatal to the prospects of Israeli-Palestinian peace and will challenge the most basic norms guiding international relations,” the letter said.

“Acquisition of territory by force has no place in 2020,” said the lawmakers, who included members of parliament from Hungary and the Czech

Republic, two countries sym-pathetic to Israel and to Trump’s Jan. 28 peace plan.

The plan offers US recog-nition of Israel’s settlements dotted across the West Bank, and Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley — land captured in the 1967 Middle East war and claimed by Palestinians for a future state. Israeli-Palestinian

peace talks collapsed in 2014 and the Palestinians see annexations as an illegal land grab. The United Nations Security Council has said settlements violate inter-national law. Israel disputes this, citing biblical, historical and political connections to the land.

The European lawmakers called for “commensurate con-sequences” if Israel, which has more than 400,000 settlers in the West Bank, went ahead with annexation — a reference to possible economic, trade or other sanctions. “Failure to adequately respond would encourage other states with ter-ritorial claims,” the letter said.

Netanyahu has dismissed criticism of the annexation plans. He says that extending Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements in the West Bank will bring peace closer once critics of the move recognise that hundreds of thousands of settlers in the area will remain under any future deal.

Internal documents and Reuters interviews with more than two dozen diplomats and officials showed there is no clear EU strategy on how to stop Israel’s plan or how to respond in a meaningful way if annex-ation goes ahead.

Damaged cars are seen after heavy rains caused a retaining wall to collapse onto vehicles in Esenyurt district in Istanbul, Turkey, yesterday.

A general view shows ongoing construction work in the Israeli settlement of Givat Zeev, near the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, yesterday.

Rouhani: UN nuclear watchdog risks losing independenceAP — TEHRAN

Iran’s President warned yesterday that the UN nuclear watchdog risks losing its inde-pendence after it adopted a resolution urging access to two sites alleged to have hosted past nuclear activities.

The Vienna-based Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency passed the resolution put forward by European states last week, calling on Iran to help clarify whether undeclared nuclear activities took place at the sites in the early 2000s.

But the Islamic republic says the IAEA’s requests for access were based on allega-tions from its arch-enemy Israel and had no legal basis.

“The Zionist regime and the Americans are pressuring the agency to investigate something related to 20, 18 years ago. They are deceiving the agency, mis-leading it,” President Hassan Rouhani said during a televised cabinet meeting.

“Our expectation is that... the agency should be able to keep its independence,” he

added, warning that Israel and the United States were tar-nishing its reputation.

Rouhani also slammed the three European parties to the Iran nuclear deal -- Britain, France and Germany -- for putting forward the resolution and “sullying themselves for no reason” by cooperating with Israel and the US.

“We did not expect this from the Europeans,” he said, while praising China and Russia —also parties to the nuclear deal —for standing against the resolution.

Iran agreed with the five countries plus the US in 2015 to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from sanc-tions, but the deal has been on life support ever since US Pres-ident Donald Trump withdrew from it and unilaterally reim-posed sanctions in 2018.

Tehran has criticised the Europeans for failing to provide it with the economic benefits set out in the accord and has rolled back some of its commit-ments in retaliation for the US pullout.

Turkey remands

Iraqi national

over links to IS

AP — DENIZLI, TURKEY

A Turkish court yesterday remanded an Iraqi national into custody over links to the Islamic State (IS) terror group, according to a security source.

The suspect was arrested from a cell house in the western Denizli province where he was hiding after participating in terrorist activities in Syria, said the source on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

The operation was launched as part of the inves-tigation against Daesh by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Denizli, the source added.Many digital materials were also seized from the address raided.

Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Daesh as a terror group in 2013.

The country has since been attacked by Daesh terrorists numerous times, including in 10 suicide bombings, seven bombings and four armed attacks which killed 315 people and injured hundreds.

Meanwhile, a Turkish soldier died after coming under fire from across the border with Iran, Turkey’s defence ministry said. Three soldiers were wounded by “harassment fire” on Tuesday, the ministry said.

UN urges pressure to bring Yemen’s parties to talksAP — UNITED NATIONS

The UN chief called for more pressure to be applied to Yemen’s warring parties to come together to arrange a cease-fire in the war that has cost more than 10,000 lives and displaced 2 million people in the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

Yemeni people are “suf-fering terribly” and COVID-19 is worsening their situation, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an interview.

He spoke before a closed briefing to the UN Security Council by UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths on Wednesday afternoon.

In 2014, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels overran the capital, Sana’a, and much of Yemen’s north, driving the gov-ernment of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile. A US-backed, Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year to try and restore Hadi’s rule.

The war has settled into a stalemate, compelling major regional players to seek an exit.

Guterres said the United Nations has been working to bring the parties together and has been promoting “confi-dence-building measures, namely in relation to the use of the airport, the harbors, the

payment of salaries and at the same time the beginning of a political process.”

“I’m still confident that that is possible,” the Secretary-General said, “and we need to put all pressure on the parties to the conflict and all relevant actors in order to make sure that the intense discussions that we have had in this regard lead to a positive outcome.”

Last month, Griffiths reported “significant progress”

in negotiations toward a cease-fire, but warned of stark chal-lenges as coronavirus spreads at an unknown rate across the Arab world’s poorest nation.

He urged the Saudi-led coa-lition and the Houthis to quickly resolve differences over humanitarian and economic measures needed to move peace efforts forward and help the country counter the virus.

Diplomats have stressed that a peace deal in Yemen

must reconcile not only the government and the Houthis, but the south and the north as well. On Monday, the Saudi-led coalition announced a break-through in the south.

The coalition said the sep-aratists’ Southern Transitional Council which is backed by the United Arab Emirates and the country’s Saudi-backed interna-tionally recognised government have agreed to a cease-fire after months of infighting.

Virus toll in Iran nears 10,000; Kuwait reports 3 more deathsREUTERS — TEHRAN

Iran’s death toll from COVID-19 has risen to nearly 10,000 with 133 new fatalities in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, extending a reversal from a steady fall in daily numbers as the country has relaxed its lockdown.

There were 2,531 new coronavirus infect ions reported in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of

cases to 212,501, along with 9,996 deaths in all, the min-istry said yesterday.

The daily death toll has reg-ularly topped 100 in the past week for the first time in two months, mirroring a sharp rise in new infections since restric-tions on movement began to be lifted in mid-April.

Senior officials have reg-ularly warned that restric-tions will be reimposed if health regulations such as

social distancing to stem the surge in infections are not observed.

In a sign of such concern, the Islamic Republic’s official Irna news agency said on Tuesday that Friday prayers at mosques will not resume in the capital Tehran this week despite an announcement last week that they would.

On Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani said the gov-ernment was considering

making it mandatory within days to wear masks in public places and covered spaces given the surge in the number of con-firmed infections.

Iran has been the Middle East country hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Health reported yesterday, three deaths and 846 new cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) during the past 24 hours, raising the count to 337 deaths and

41,879 infections.The latest infections

included 490 Kuwaiti cit-izens, whi le the 356 remaining cases are of several other nationalities, the ministry’s Spokesman Dr. Abdullah Al Sanad said.

Earlier yesterda, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Health announced 505 virus-free patients in the past 24 hours, raising to 32,809 total number of recov-eries so far.

Iran arrests 3 for trying to sell babies on InstagramAFP — TEHRAN

Police in Iran said they have arrested three people accused of trying to sell babies on Instagram, semi-official news agency Isna reported yesterday.

“Three people who were seeking to sell two babies have been arrested,” Tehran’s police chief Hossein Rahimi was quoted as saying.

One of the babies was 20 days old and the other was two months, Rahimi said.

Police had been alerted about “ads on Instagram for selling babies”, he added.

They discovered 10 to 15 accounts involved in the s c h e m e o n t h e

photo-sharing social media platform, and their admin-istrators were arrested.

Each baby had been bought for between 50 and 100m rials ($255 to $510) before being offered for resale for 400-500m, Rahimi said.

The three people arrested had no prior records, he said, and the infants had since been handed over to social services.

One of the three arrested was only identified by the initials M.A.

According to Isna, the suspect had allegedly said he acted as a middleman because he was unemployed and needed the money.

Yemenis protest against the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in the country’s third city of Taez, yesterday.

Any Israeli move to annex parts of the West Bank would be “fatal” for Middle East peace hopes and must be prevented, if necessary with countermeasures, said a letter signed by 1,080 European lawmakers from 25 countries and made public yesterday. The letter raises parliamentary concerns about US President Donald Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

Assad’s hopes of rehabilitation have been put on ice by new US sanctions that will likely scare off all but his closest friends and deter the investment he needs to deliver on promised reconstruction.

08 THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

EDITORIAL

THE banking system in Qatar remains firm and strong despite challenges created by COVID-19 pandemic. The joint coordination of all the stakeholders in the country ranging from public authorities, public and private institutions, have contributed to ensure stability of Qatar banking sector.

According to PwC’s “Qatar Banking Report” for first quarter (Q1) of 2020, the aggregated total assets of the eight listed commercial banks in Qatar, over the first quarter, grew QR29bn, or 1.8 percent compared to fiscal year 2019 to reach QR1.65trillion.

The bank’s aggregated loans and advances reached QR1.16 trillion, growing 23.7 percent considering the three-year period to Q1, 2017. The aggregated profits of the eight listed commercial banks showed a small decline of 1 percent on March 31, 2020 compared to Q1, 2019, which resulted from increased expenses mainly driven by a short-term raise of net impairment losses on loans and advances to customers.

In Qatar, Islamic banks continued to boast higher utilisation of assets, with a loan-to-deposit ratio greater than conventional banks. Qatari Islamic banks boasted a higher ratio of 96.8 percent during Q1-2020 as com-pared to 90.0 percent in the case of conventional banks, according to report by Kamco Invest. Qatari Islamic banks have a much higher utilization of deposits as against some other regional lenders that have a higher ratio for conventional banks. Net Interest Margins for Islamic banks in Qatar stood at 2.7 percent as com-pared to 2.6 percent for conventional banks during the quarter, noted the report.

The eight listed commercial banks’ aggregate loans and advances to customer deposits ratio stood at 104.4 percent as at March 31, 2020, increasing by 0.84 per-centage points from its corresponding value as at December 31, 2019, and by 2.44 percentage points from 101.9 percent as at March 31, 2017.

The banking system is part of Qatar’s growing economy which has successfully overcome COVID-19 challenges. The economy has also overcome the chal-lenges posed by unjust blockade imposed on Qatar by siege countries. A recent report issued by Qatar Chamber in June revealed that more than 47,000 new companies have been established in Qatar during the years of blockade, in addition to attracting more foreign investments in light of the availability of legislation, facil-ities and incentives provided by the State to attract foreign investments.

The strong banking system reflects the prudent eco-nomic management by the State of Qatar and the Qatar Central Bank despite the challenges associated with COVID-19.

Qatar’s reliable banking sector

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Quote of the day

Britain must send clear signals that it wants to

seal a deal with the European Union on their

relationship after Brexit. The ball is in the UK's

court. I believe that the deal is still possible.

Michel Barnier, European Commission's Head of Task Force for Relations with the United Kingdom

Syrian shoppers at a bazaar in old Damascus.

Just last year, President Bashar Al Assad seemed on the brink of crowning military victories by easing his diplo-matic isolation and recov-ering more of Syria without a bullet being fired.

Not only had US-allied Kurds invited government forces back to the northeast, but businessmen from the once hostile United Arab Emirates visited Damascus to scout out investment oppor-tunities and regional trade had started to pick up. Thanks to intervention from Russia and Iran on his behalf, nearly all of Syria’s main cities and towns are under government control, with rebels who fought since 2011 to over-throw Assad now confined to a patch of territory near the Turkish frontier. But today, the mood in Damascus is gloomy.

Assad’s hopes of rehabili-tation have been put on ice by new US sanctions that will

likely scare off all but his closest friends and deter the investment he needs to deliver on promised reconstruction.

The economy, already ravaged by a decade of war, is in deep trouble, hit not only by sanctions but also by the fallout of a financial meltdown in neighbouring Lebanon that has choked off dollars.

While sanctions alone seem unlikely to bring down Assad, experts say they will make it harder for him to consolidate gains and rebuild patronage networks in loy-alist areas that paid a heavy price in battle.

With Syria split in three, heavily sanctioned and gov-erned by a pariah, compar-isons are being drawn with Iraq in the years between Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled him. “The cascading effect of the sanctions could undermine Assad’s ability to re-extend or maintain control over much of the country. I don’t think it will overthrow him in the near-term, but it will restrict his ability to maintain control,” said David Lesch, a Syria expert and Middle East History professor at Trinity University in Texas.

The war has killed hun-dreds of thousands of people and forced more than 11 million from their homes, around half the pre-war pop-ulation. The once productive economy has suffered hun-dreds of billions of dollars of destruction.

As Assad steadily recovered ground, Syrians in government areas had been

hoping for better times. But their already battered pur-chasing power has been demolished this year by a col-lapse in the Syrian pound. The currency, steady at around 500 to the dollar for several years, began falling last year and hit a low of 3,000 this month.

Assad is counting on the allies that saved him in battle - Russia and Iran - to help him again. But with both sanc-tioned themselves, neither has the wherewithal to offer the investment Damascus had hoped would flow from coun-tries such as the UAE, China and India, which now run the risk of US sanctions if they deal with Syria.

Foreign Minister Walid Al Moualem told a Damacus news conference on Tuesday the aim of the new US sanc-tions imposed in a law called the Caesar Act was to create hunger and instability.

Syria could depend on its friends and allies, he said: “This needs a bit of patience. It’s been a week since Caesar was passed. No one has a magic wand to say Russia has to give this or Iran that.” Syria’s allies in an Iran-backed alliance known as the resistance axis are looking for ways around the sanctions, a regional official told Reuters. Iran has provided Syria with credit lines and oil during the war. “The resistance axis will work on opening gaps,” the official said.

Washington, which once armed some of Assad’s enemies, says the goal is to hold Damascus to account for war crimes and deter it from pressing the war. The sanc-tions exempt humanitarian aid. Washington will this

summer apply “unprece-dented political and economic pressure on the Assad regime to return to the political process”, US special envoy for Syria Joel Rayburn has said. Sanctions are not Washing-ton’s only tool.

Though President Donald Trump last year ordered US forces to withdraw, they remain in the east, denying Assad control of oil fields and farmland and providing a security umbrella for a Kurdish-led autonomous zone. Turkish forces in the northwest also obstruct Assad’s recovery of the last rebel stronghold.

Assad’s grasp over some recovered areas is shaky, including the south which is still restive two years after the defeat of rebels. The dire economy recently triggered protests in Sweida, a loyalist area in the south.

The financial problems led the state to seize vast assets held by Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, formerly a pillar of the ruling elite.

“Assad’s strategy and the promise he has been selling to his supporters has always been that we have to win this war militarily ... and be patient and then eventually the Americans and Europeans are going to tire and sanctions would be lifted or eased,” Aron Lund, a fellow at The Century Foundation, said.

“If poverty turns to extreme poverty and hunger turns to famine over time and the patronage network ... starts to weaken and wither away, we could start to see different threats rising that could be really, really severe for Assad.”

BLOOMBERG

It’s been a grim few months for the US, with some 120,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 and tens of millions out of work. So it’s no surprise that many are feeling on edge. As of early June, more than one in three Americans reported experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety - a dramatic increase from roughly one in 10 last year.

This doesn’t mean one-third of Americans have a diagnosable mental disorder, but many would surely benefit from professional help. Even before the pan-demic struck, more than half of those with mental-health disorders went untreated or undertreated. The COVID-19 pandemic has no doubt made this problem worse. But it has also, fortuitously, made it

easier than ever for people to see therapists and psychia-trists from home. Policy-makers and insurers should build on this recent expansion of tele-health, and make it permanent feature of US mental-health care.

In late March, amid con-cerns that social distancing would keep Americans from seeing their doctors, the federal government moved to broaden tele-health access - for instance, by making Medicare cover an array of services offered online or over the phone. State Med-icaid programs and private insurers quickly followed suit. Psychiatrists and therapists, paid more than before to offer socially distanced consultations, counseling and addiction treatment, went online. For the first time, tele-health services for mental

disorders became available to many millions of Americans.

Telemedicine, which research shows is just as effective as in-person mental-health care, has long been proposed as a way improve access to treatment in rural areas. But until recently, strict rules gov-erned where patients could get treatment, and psycholo-gists and psychiatrists risked losing money by providing it. In a post-COVID-19 world, that’s no longer the case. The demand from patients is clear. One Massachusetts insurer reported processing nearly half a million claims for socially distanced mental-health care in just over two months, and added hundreds of providers to meet the need.

Unfortunately, as things stand now, the federal

government and many private insurers will reverse this shift once the coronavirus threat fades. This would be a mistake. Telemedicine is no cure-all - uneven access to technology means it’s una-vailable in some areas, and online mental-health treatment poses unique security and privacy chal-lenges. Still, it can make a big difference. By removing common barriers to treatment, such as transpor-tation costs and scheduling issues, it greatly improves access to care.

Tele-health should be seen not as a stopgap measure but as a standard and crucial part of our mental-health system. Providers that offer quality care online should be reimbursed appropriately, and patients should have access to their services.

No sweet victory for Assad as economy collapses and US sanctions hit

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Online mental-health care shouldn’t end with the pandemic

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09THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020 AFRICA

Italy’s foreign ministermeets GNA head in TripoliAFP — TRIPOLI

Italy’s foreign minister met the head of Libya’s unity government during a lightning trip to Tripoli yesterday, weeks after the UN-recognised admin-istration pushed back strongman Khalifa Haftar’s bid to seize the capital.

Luigi Di Maio and head of the Government of National Accord Fayez Al Sarraj stressed “the need to resume the political process and end foreign inter-ference” in Libya, according to a statement from Sarraj’s office.

Referring to the Irini naval operation launched by the European Union in the Medi-terranean to enforce an arms embargo on Libya, Sarraj said enforcement needed to be “global”, covering maritime, land and air routes.

Sarraj has previously criti-cised Irini on the grounds it favours eastern-based Haftar, who takes delivery of arms overland and via air.

Egypt, Russia and the United Arab Emirates have all sup-ported Haftar.

Di Maio and Sarraj also dis-cussed the struggle against illegal immigration, and Italian support for de-mining Tripoli’s war-ravaged southern suburbs, according to the prime minis-ter’s office.

An unnamed Italian foreign ministry source, cited by the Italian Messaggero daily, said

Rome considers Libya “a pri-ority... our most important issue, which concerns our national security.” “We can’t afford a partition of the country. That is why we went first to Ankara, a (diplomatic) channel we’ve always kept open,” the source said, referring to Di Maio’s trip to Turkey on June 19.

He last visited Libya in January.

Libya has been mired in chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed long-time dictator Moamer Kadhafi. The Arab League on Tuesday called for the

withdrawal of foreign forces in Libya and urged talks on ending the conflict in the North African country. The Turkish-backed GNA has recently made major military gains against Haftar’s

forces, rolling back his year-long campaign to oust Sarraj’s administration from the capital.

Egypt has warned that advances by Turkey-backed forces on the strategic Libyan

city of Sirte could prompt an E g y p t i a n m i l i t a r y intervention.

The GNA denounced Cairo’s statements as a “declaration of war”.

Fayez Al Sarraj (right), Prime Minister of Libya’s UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), receives Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio for a meeting in Tripoli, yesterday.

Malawi calls for calm as it tallies presidential re-run votesAFP — BLANTYRE, MALAWI

Malawi’s electoral commission appealed for “peace and calm” yesterday as it tallied ballots following a historic poll to re-elect a president after Peter Mutharika’s victory was over-turned.

Voters in Malawi went to the polls on Tuesday for the second time in just over a year after the Constitutional Court dramati-cally ruled that last year’s polls were fraught with “grave and widespread” irregularities.

The cancellation of Mutha-rika’s victory was historic as it made Malawi just the second country south of the Sahara to have presidential poll results set aside, after Kenya in 2017.

Rarely do courts in Africa annul election victories of incumbent presidents.

Results from the May 2019 election sparked countrywide protests that lasted months, a rare occurrence in the poor southern African country.

It took the top court six months to sift through the

evidence before concluding that Mutharika was not duly elected and ordered fresh elections.

The chairman of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Chifundo Kachale, said votes from 5,002 polling stations were being tallied on Wednesday.

“We appeal to Malawians to maintain peace and calm as the vote-counting continues,” he told a news conference in Blantyre.

Mutharika has accused the opposition of inciting violence following isolated incidents which the police and electoral commission said had not affected the election.

“It’s obvious that the oppo-sition is doing this,” he told reporters after voting in Blantyre on Tuesday, claiming some of his party monitors were “chased away, some were beaten”. “It’s obviously people that are afraid of the will of the people that are engaging in these barbaric acts,” he alleged.

But analysts suggest he may be preparing to challenge the outcome in case he loses.

“I think he is preparing the political, may the legal ground for losing,” Peter Fabricius of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies said.

Mutharika, 79, did not take the decision of the constitu-tional court lightly when it overturned last year’s poll.

He accused judges of working with the opposition to

steal the election through what he dubbed a “judicial coup d’etat”.

He had narrowly won the now-discredited election with 38.5 percent of the ballots, beating his closest rival Lazarus Chakwera, 65, by just 159,000 votes. Victory in the re-run will be determined by whoever garners more than 50 percent

of the votes — a new threshold set by the top court.

Some 6.8 million people were asked to choose between Mutharika, Chakwera and an underdog candidate, Peter Dominico Kuwani.

The electoral commission has until July 3 to unveil the results, although the announcement is widely thought likely to come this week. Kachale says the com-mission will only announce results after dealing with all the complaints. As of midday yes-terday, only three results from the country’s 28 districts had arrived at the national tally centre.

Departing from the past practice of transmitting results electronically from polling sta-tions, this time all results sheets are being transported physically under armed military escort.

Kachale said they had ditched the electronic trans-mission of results so that “no one should wake up and raise allegations of hacking or infil-tration of the results”.

Electoral officials and political party monitors count votes during the presidential elections at a polling station in Lilongwe, on Tuesday.

First COVID-19 vaccine trial begins in AfricaAP — JOHANNESBURG

Africa’s first participation in a COVID-19 vaccine trial started yesterday as nervous volunteers received injections, while offi-cials said the continent of 1.3 billion people cannot be left behind.

The large-scale trial of the vaccine developed at the Uni-versity of Oxford in Britain is being conducted in South Africa, Britain and Brazil. South Africa has nearly one-third of Africa’s confirmed cases with more than 106,000, including more than 2,100 deaths. The country late Tuesday reported its biggest one-day death toll of 111.

The African continent now

has nearly 325,000 cases as countries loosen restrictions under economic pressure from citizens who say they have to feed their families. Shortages of testing materials and medical supplies remain a problem as Africa could become the world’s next hot spot.

The pandemic was delayed in Africa “but is picking up speed very quickly,” the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief John Nken-gasong said yesterday, with a steep increase in the number of cases and deaths.

“Unless we act now, Africa is at risk of being left behind on the global vaccine,” he warned, and urged that local manufac-turing and scientific expertise

play a key role.Cameroon, Uganda, Tan-

zania, Kenya and South Africa all have highly developed clinical trial capabilities, said Salim Abdool Karim, chair of South Africa’s ministerial advisory committee for COVID-19. Many other sub-Saharan African countries also have clinical trial capacity, said Daniel Bausch, director of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team. “We’re not only needing but capable of participating” as the world races for a vaccine, South Africa’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.

African leaders have been outspoken about the continent being elbowed out in the intense global competition for

medical supplies in this pan-demic, as well as what the World Health Organization’s Africa chief, Matshidiso Moeti, called the “distortion of the global market for key items.”

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged that the initial supply of any COVID-19 vaccine be deployed where it’s most needed, rather than based on the “ability to pay.” Tedros also announced that as of this week, all 54 of Africa’s countries now have the lab capacity to test for the coronavirus.

In February, just two African nations could test for the virus. The continent’s first virus case was reported on Feb-ruary 14.

Protesters chant slogans during a gathering to demand the release of detained protesters who were tried for disrupting public order, in front of the local court in Tataouine, Tunisia, on Tuesday.

Zimbabwe announces150% rise in fuel priceAFP — HARARE

Z i m b a b w e y e s t e r d a y announced a 150 percent rise in the price of fuel following the launch of a forex auction system which eroded the value of the local currency.

The price of a litre of diesel jumped 152 percent to ZW$62.77 ($1.12) from ZW$24.93 while petrol shot up 147 percent to ZW$71.62, the country’s Energy Regulatory Authority said in a notice.

The central bank re-intro-duced forex auctioning on Tuesday, the first in 16 years after a long battle to stabilise its currency and fight hyperinflation.

The auction saw the local currency losing more than half of its value from 1:25 to 1:57 to the greenback by the end of trading. Zimbabwe has been facing fuel shortages since October 2018. The scarcity prompted President Emmerson Mnangagwa to increase the

price of fuel by 150 percent in January 2019, sparking coun-trywide demonstrations.

At least 17 people were killed and scores injured after soldiers deployed to quell the strike opened fire on protesters. The government said at the time the prices were lower than in other countries in the region, and that some foreigners were buying fuel in bulk in Zim-babwe for resale in neigh-bouring countries.

Despite the price increase which was aimed at ending shortages, the scarcity persisted with motorists sometimes spending nights in queues for fuel pumps, stretching for kil-ometres. After years in inter-national isolation, Zimbabwe’s economy has been on a downturn for more than a decade. Mnangagwa pledged to mend the economy but things have only got worse with shops running short of basic commodities like bank notes, sugar and the staple cornmeal.

Luigi Di Maio and head of the Government of National Accord, Fayez Al Sarraj, stressed “the need to resume the political process and end foreign interference” in Libya.

Fresh protests, clashes in southern TunisiaAFP — TUNIS

Tunisian youths clashed with police overnight in a town in Tunisia’s deprived south, where a protest movement is demanding jobs and services, the interior ministry said yesterday.

“Several hundred people”

gathered Tuesday night in front of a local security forces facility in Douz, 475 km south of the capital Tunis, to protest dis-rupted water supplies, ministry spokesman Khaled Hayouni said. Demonstrators also came out in support of a growing protest movement underway in Tataouine, 200 km southeast

of Douz, where protesters are demanding authorities make good on a 2017 promise to provide jobs.

Protesters in Douz burned tyres and threw rocks at security forces, who responded with tear gas, Hayouni said.

Calm was restored by yes-terday morning, he added.

Khartoum says Ethiopian dam poses risk to Sudan damsANATOLIA — KHARTOUM

Sudan warned yesterday that the filling of an Ethiopian hydro-electric Nile dam without an agreement with downstream countries would pose a risk to the country’s dams.

The warning came after talks between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan on the Grand Ethi-opian Renaissance Dam (GERD) collapsed earlier this month.

Egypt fears that the Ethi-opian dam would reduce its water share, while Ethiopia maintains that the project is necessary for national devel-opment and regional elec-tricity interconnection.

Negotiations between Cairo and Addis Ababa centre on the pace at which Ethiopia fills the 74 billion cubic meter reservoir behind the dam and the impact that could have on water supplies downstream in Egypt and Sudan.

Sudanese Minister of Irri-gation Yasser Abbas said filling the GERD without an agreement would pose a risk to the Sudanese dams, espe-cially Alrosiaris dam, which is only 25 km from the Sudanese-Ethiopian border.

“Sudan conditioned the signing of an agreement before the beginning of filling the GERD as the safety of Alro-siaris dam is directly con-nected to the operation of the Ethiopian dam,” he told a press conference in Khartoum.

He said that the return to the talks is linked to the break-through the three countries can make in the coming days.

The minister said Sudan will submit a report on its con-cerns about the Ethiopian dam to the UN Security Council.

DR Congo police

use tear gas on

protesters near

parliament

AFP — KINSHASA

Police in DR Congo’s capital fired tear gas for a second straight day yesterday to break up violent protests outside parliament over proposed changes in the judiciary.

Angry demonstrators, some armed with petrol bombs, blocked traffic outside parliament, erecting barriers and burning tyres.

Police first fired warning shots and then used tear gas to disperse them.

The protesters were mainly motorcycle taxi drivers and supporters of President Felix Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party.

The UDPS is in an uneasy coalition with forces close to Tshisekedi’s long-serving predecessor Joseph Kabila. Only a third of the government ministers are from the UDPS.

The contested legal changes include proposals to define the powers of judges, which critics say is a ploy to muzzle the judiciary. The pro-posals come from the Common Front for Congo (FCC) which is close to Kabila, who remains a behind-the-scenes force in national politics. Some of the protesters hauled MPs out of their cars and attacked the homes of Kabila loyalists.

Former parliament speaker Aubin Minaku, one of the people behind the pro-posed amendments, said the “aim is to define the authority the justice ministry exercises over the judges.” But Tsh-isekedi’s party on Monday lambasted it as a ploy to “undermine the independence of the judiciary and increase the power of the justice ministry.”

10 THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020ASIA

India deploys moreforces in Galwan Valleyas China holds groundAFP — LEH

Indian fighter jets roared over a flashpoint Himalayan region yesterday as part of a show of strength following what military sources say has been a Chinese takeover of contested territory.

Chinese forces have held onto a chunk of land covering several square kilometres at the mouth of the Galwan Valley fol-lowing a deadly brawl there on June 15, the Indian military sources said.

The two sides publicly declared they would pull back following the clash, which saw 20 Indian soldiers killed in a battle involving rocks and nail-studded batons.

But both have maintained troops around the valley, with India deploying more forces and trying to project military might.

Indian jets regularly took off yesterday from a military base in Leh, the main Indian town in the contested region, and headed towards the moun-tainous border 240km away.

There were also check-points on main roads out Leh and a frenzy of military activity around the main town, which lies at 3,500 metres.

Residents reported long lines of military trucks and artillery on roads near Leh.

“We now have a good strength present in the area,” an official of the Indian army’s Northern Command said on con-dition of anonymity, referring to the reinforcements.

Tashi Chhepal, a retired

Indian army captain who has served in the area and is based in Leh, said the mobilisation was unprecedented in a sen-sitive region touching Pakistan as well as China. “I haven’t seen this kind of military movement before,” he said.

After the latest round of talks between military com-manders on Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the two sides had “agreed to take necessary measures to promote a cooling of the situation”.

But they made similar com-ments after a fist-fight in May that proved to be a warmup for the medieval-style battle at Galwan.

Images taken on Sunday by the US satellite firm Maxar showed trucks and huts at camps on the river at 4,500 metres near the scene of the

fighting. It was not clear whose army they were.

The two countries fought a border war in 1962 but this month’s fighting was their deadliest encounter in 53 years.

According to Indian military sources, Chinese troops ambushed Indian soldiers and forced them down a ridge where they had gone to remove a Chinese “encroachment”.

A bilateral accord prevents the use of guns, but the fighting was still fierce, reportedly with rocks and batons wrapped with barbed wire.

China has in turn accused Indian soldiers of twice crossing the Line of Actual Control, the unofficial boundary, provoking its troops. But the Chinese appear to be sticking to their gains at Galwan and the nearby Pangong Tso lake, police intelligence as well as military sources said.

China is now claiming the valley as its own, in statements that India has rejected.

Indian analysts are dubious of the chances of a major easing of the tensions or that India will reclaim the territory.

Harsh Pant from the Observer Research Foundation think-tank in New Delhi said: “Anything that the Chinese now say can’t be taken on face value. India, hopefully, has learnt its lessons now.” Amid calls for a boycott of Chinese goods, media reports say Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s gov-ernment could make it more difficult for Chinese companies to do business.

Relatives mourn a man who died due to the coronavirus disease, at a crematorium in New Delhi, yesterday.

India calls in Army to run facilitiesin New Delhi as virus cases surgeREUTERS — NEW DELHI

India reported 16,000 new coronavirus cases yesterday, its highest daily increase since the outbreak began, and the government called in the Army to manage new treatment centres with thousands of addi-tional hospital beds in New Delhi.

At more than 456,000 con-firmed coronavirus cases so far, India is the fourth worst hit country in the world, behind the United States, Brazil and Russia, according to a tally.

Cases are expected to keep rising as state governments ease restrictions in place since lockdown was first imposed in late March.

New Delhi, the sprawling capital of more than 20 million

people, also recorded its highest single-day increase yesterday, with more than 3,900 cases.

Local government data showed that of the roughly 13,400 beds allocated to COVID-19 patients in the city, around 6,200 were occupied.

The federal home ministry said the city would have around 20,000 additional beds available by next week at tem-porary facilities run by army doctors and nurses.

These include a 10,000 bed facility hosted at a religious centre and railway coaches turned into wards.

“Armed Forces personnel have been detailed for pro-viding medical care and attention to COVID-19 patients housed in the Railway coaches

in Delhi,” Home Minister Amit Shah said.

The city government esti-mates it will have 550,000 COVID-19 cases by the end of July, and will require 150,000 beds by then.

Delhi’s Deputy Chief Min-ister Manish Sisodia said that a new federal government order to take every positive patient to an assessment centre as opposed to evaluating them at home was stretching already limited resources.

“Our ambulance system, our medical system is under pressure now. Today, we are having to take patients in buses,” Sisodia said, adding that he had written to the federal home ministry. “This (rule) is creating chaos in New Delhi.”

Recovery rate of

COVID-19 at 40%

in Bangladesh

ANATOLIA — DHAKA

Bangladesh yesterday regis-tered 3,462 new cases positive for coronavirus, taking the total count to 122,660 since the first case was detected in early March.

Out of total infections, more than 49,500 patients have so far recovered with some 2,000 fresh recoveries in the past 24 hours. The recovery rate now stands at 40.49 percent, according to the Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, the country witnessed the deaths of 37 people from COVID-19, virus-caused disease, rising the tally to 1,582, Nasima Sultana, a director general at the Health Ministry, told a regular online news conference.

The South Asian country with a population of 165 million, tested some 16,500 samples in the past 24 hours. The total count of tests neared 660,500 with a 21.07 percent infection rate.

Australia reports first COVID-19 death in more than a monthREUTERS — SYDNEY

Australia reported its first COVID-19 death in more than a month yestererday, as concerns about a second wave of infections saw thousands of people queue, sometimes for hours, to be tested for the virus.

A man in his eighties died in Victoria state, where 20 new cases were reported overnight, Victoria Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton told reporters in Melbourne.

Australia has so far escaped a high number of casualties from the new coronavirus, with

just over 7,500 infections and 103 deaths, aided by strict lockdown measures and social distancing rules.

Fears of a second wave stem from an upswing in new cases in Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous state, where authorities are trying to contain outbreaks in half a dozen Mel-bourne suburbs.

State Premier Daniel Andrews has asked for military personnel to help operate pop-up test centres and enforce a 14-day quarantine requirement for anyone coming from overseas, a spokeswoman said.

After enforcing lockdown restrictions earlier in its corona-virus outbreak compared to most other countries, Australia began to ease those curbs last month to revive its economy as infection rates has slowed significantly.

The lockdown in Victoria was being lifted more slowly, but authorities there believe the increase in new cases stemmed from family get-togethers attended by people with mild symptoms.

Over the weekend, Victoria extended its state of emergency for another month and reim-posed restrictions on

gatherings, as authorities believe many of the new cases stem can be traced to family get-togethers attended by people with mild symptoms.

“There were some that may have believed that we were going to be completely out of the woods. That has never been the case,” Australia’s Minister for Health Greg Hunt told reporters in Melbourne.

It can literally take one person who doesn’t do the right thing.” Alarmed by the rise in new infections, thousands of people have flocked to testing centres, where waiting times of

up to four hours have been reported. Police were forced to shut one drive-by clinic in Mel-bourne 20 minutes after it opened as it was unable to cope with the throng.

Still, authorities say anyone who wants a test will get one.

The renewed scare has also sparked a rush to supermarkets in Victoria, where two of the biggest chains, Woolworths Group and Coles, have imposed fresh limits how much customers can buy for specific goods, including toilet paper, hand san-itiser, flour, sugar, pasta, long-life milk, eggs and rice.

Singapore PM’sbrother joins oppnparty before pollsAFP — SINGAPORE

The Singapore prime minister’s estranged brother said yesterday he has joined an opposition party ahead of elec-tions next month, presenting a new challenge to the country’s long-ruling government.

The city-state’s parliament was dissolved Tuesday for a general election on July 10, even as the country struggles to recover from a major coro-navirus outbreak that hit migrant-worker dormitories particularly hard.

Lee Hsien Yang is locked in a long-running row with his sibling, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, over the legacy of their father, Singapore’s late founding leader Lee Kwan Yew.

The 62-year-old met with Tan Cheng Bock, the leader of new opposition group Progress Singapore Party (PSP), yesterday morning and revealed that he had recently become a member.

“I joined the party because I think that (Tan) is committed to doing the right thing for Singapore and Singaporeans, and he loves the country and has brought together a group of people who share his vision,” he told reporters.

He would not be drawn on whether he planned to run as a candidate in the election.

Tan, a popular figure who was once a lawmaker with the

ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), said that Lee Hsien Yang was “not just an ordinary person”.

“His father is the founder of Singapore, so that’s very important,” he said.

The PSP, launched last year, will not threaten the PAP’s decades-long hold on power but the combination of a Lee family member and Tan could draw some voters away from the ruling party, observers believe.

Mustafa Izzuddin, senior international affairs analyst at management consultancy Solaris Strategies Singapore, said the move “helps to boost the chances of PSP doing well in the elections”.

But he added: “Whether that translates into votes... will depend on many other factors, not just him joining the party”.

If he decides to run as a candidate, “it will create an even greater political buzz” and the party would have a chance of winning in the district where he is fielded, Izzuddin added.

There is speculation that if he does run, it might be in his father’s former constituency on the fringes of the business district.

Lee Hsien Yang, a business executive, and his sister Lee Wei Ling fell out with their prime minister brother fol-lowing the death of their father in 2015.

The Rohingya refugees rescued by fishermen are seen on a boat behind a patrol boat near the coast of Seunuddon beach in North Aceh, Indonesia, yesterday.

Indonesian fishermen discover 94 Rohingya adrift at seaAP & AFP — BANDA ACEH

Indonesian f ishermen discovered 94 hungry, weak Rohingya Muslims on a wooden boat adrift off Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh, an official said yesterday.

The people were found by three fishermen late on Monday on the rickety boat about 6km off the coast, local police chief Muhammad Jamil said.

He said the group of Rohingya cried out for help and jumped onto the fishermen’s boat, but its engine also stopped working on the way to shore.

They remained on the boat Wednesday awaiting a decision by the local government whether to accept them.

“We are still waiting for further instructions on what we should do with them,” Jamil said. He said authorities pro-vided them with food and water and villagers donated clothes.

The 49 women, 15 men and 30 children were weak from hunger and dehydration after a two-week voyage, Jamil said.

He said it wasn’t clear where the group was traveling from or where it was headed because none could speak English or Malay.

Meanwhile, a coastguard official said in Kuala Lumpur that dozens of Rohingya are believed to have died during a four-month boat journey to Malaysia.

There had been more than 300 people on board the boat which was intercepted by authorities earlier this month, said Zubil Mat Som, director-general of the Malaysian Mar-itime Enforcement Agency. The 269 survivors were taken to Langkawi island.

“Some of them died at sea. They were thrown overboard,” Zubil told reporters, without specifiying the exact number.

Bangladesh boy

held for Facebook

criticism of PM

AFP — DHAKA

A 15-year-old boy has become the latest person to fall foul of Bangladesh’s contentious Internet laws after being arrested for criticising Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on social media.

Rights groups say the laws are used to silence dissent, with hundreds of people charged since 2018 for crimes including smearing the image of Hasina and other senior political figures.

Police in Bhaluka said Wednesday they arrested Mohammad Emon at the weekend after a local official from the ruling party claimed the teen had “badmouthed... our mother-like leader”.

On Facebook, the teen had allegedly written that out of 100 taka ($1.20) paid in a new mobile phone tax, “35 to 25 taka has to be given to Sheikh Hasina as widow allowance because her husband is no more”.

Indian jets regularly took off yesterday from a military base in Leh and headed towards the mountainous border 240km away. There were also checkpoints on main roads out Leh and a frenzy of military activity around the main town.

11THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020 ASIA

PIA crash probe shows pilots distracted by COVID-19 worryREUTERS — ISLAMABAD

The pilots of a Pakistan airliner that crashed last month, killing 97, were distracted and preoc-cupied as they talked about the coronavirus pandemic while preparing for an initial failed attempt to land, the country’s aviation minister said on Wednesday.

The Airbus A320 of national carrier Pakistan International Airlines crashed on May 22 in the southern city of Karachi, killing all but two of those aboard as it came down a kilo-metre short of the runway on its second try.

The engines of the aircraft had touched the ground as it landed without its wheels down on the first attempt, before taking off again, Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan told par-liament as he presented an initial report on the disaster.

The flight data showed the landing gear was lowered at 10 nautical miles, Khan said, but then raised again 5 nautical miles from the runway, which he described as “beyond comprehension”.

The aircraft was “100 percent fit to fly” and there was no technical fault, he said, but added that the pilots were not “focused” because of the pandemic.

“The discussion throughout was about corona,” Khan said, referring to exchanges between the pilot and co-pilot he said he had listened to on the cockpit

voice recorder. “Corona was dom-inant over their mind. Their family was affected.” The report did not spell out the pilots’ conversation on the virus, but said they did not follow set protocols.

“Several warnings and alerts such as over-speed, landing gear not down and ground proximity alerts, were disre-garded,” it added. “The landing was undertaken with landing gear retracted. The aircraft touched the runway surface on its engines.”

The report said the aircraft was cleared by controllers to land without observing that the landing gears were not

extended, nor was it conveyed to the pilots that the engines had scraped the runway.

The report added that there was no demonstration of any malfunction in the landing gear system on Flight PK8303, which had taken off from the eastern city of Lahore.

Shortly after the engines scraped the runway and a go-around was attempted, both engines failed one-by-one, the report said.

“When the plane took off again, both engines had been damaged; and when the plane was making an approach for a second landing it didn’t have

that power and fell on the res-idential area,” Khan told a news conference later on Wednesday.

Khan said the captain and co-pilot, both of whom were killed, were experienced and medically fit.

Air traffic control drew the

pilot’s attention to the irregu-larity and urged a go-around, Khan said.

“They were warned by the controllers, but said, ‘I’ll manage’… and then they started discussing corona again.” “The last words from the pilot were,

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God’,” Khan added.

The secretary of the Pakistan Airline Pilots’ Associ-ation, Imran Narejo, told Reuters that pilots were expected to not be distracted during crucial procedures such as landing, but other factors should also be investigated for the complete report.

“It was pointed out the pilots were busy talking about corona, and that they may have over-looked a few things,” he said. But other reasons were also there, like them not being pro-vided proper support from air traffic control”.

Pakistan’s Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan speaks during a press conference in Islamabad, yesterday. RIGHT: Mohammad Zubair, 24, a survivor of the Pakistan International Airlines plane crash, rests as he uses his mobile phone at his home in Karachi.

COVID-19 cases

continue to

fall in Pakistan

ANATOLIA — ISLAMABAD

New coronavirus cases in Pakistan continued to decline for a fifth consecutive day yesterday, official data showed.

According to the Health Ministry, 3,892 cases were confirmed across the country over the past 24 hours, raising the overall count to 188,926.

The figure marked a fall of almost 3,000 from the record high of 6,895 reached slightly over a week ago on June 13.

It was also the fifth day of declining cases — 6,604 on June 19, 4,951 on June 20, 4,471 on June 21, and 3,946 on June 22.

Fatalities have also decreased significantly over recent days, falling to 60 on Wednesday from the record high of 153 on June 19.

The death toll in the country now stands at 3,755, while recoveries increased by 4,283 to 77,75, raising the overall recovery ratio from 37% to 41.2%, according to the ministry’s data.

Health experts also con-firmed the improving numbers in the South Asian country of over 220 million, which has conducted over 1.15 million tests so far.

North Korea’s Kim suspends military plans against SouthAFP — SEOUL

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has suspended plans for military action against the South, state media reported Wednesday, in an apparent sudden dialling down of tensions after Pyongyang blew up a liaison office.

In recent weeks, Pyongyang has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of Seoul over anti-North leaflets, which defectors based in South Korea send across the border -- usually attached to balloons or floated in bottles.

Last week, it blew up a liaison

office on its side of the border that symbolised inter-Korean rap-prochement, while its military said it would take multiple measures against the South.

The moves included re-entering areas of the North that it had withdrawn from as part of inter-Korean projects, restoring guard posts in the Demilitarized Zone that forms the border, and stepping up exercises.

But the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim on Tuesday presided over a Central Military Commission (CMC) pre-liminary meeting that “suspended the military action plans against the south”.

The North also began removing loudspeakers on Wednesday from border areas, which they had started setting up just two days ago to broadcast anti-South propaganda, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed sources.

In addition, Pyongyang’s propaganda outlets deleted online articles critical of South Korea, according to Seoul’s uni-fication ministry, with handles relations with the North.

The apparently conciliatory moves by Pyongyang are unusual, and come after ana-lysts said it was seeking to man-ufacture a crisis on the

peninsula in an effort to extract concessions.

The South’s unification min-istry said it was “closely” and “carefully” reviewing the KCNA report, which said the meeting took place through video con-ferencing — something the min-istry said it believed was a first.

Seoul had retorted with uncharacteristically stern crit-icism to Pyongyang’s demo-lition of the liaison office and harsh condemnation of Pres-ident Moon Jae-in by Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong, saying it will “no longer tolerate” the North’s “unreasonable acts and words”.

Inter-Korean relations have

been in a deep freeze following the collapse of a summit in Hanoi between Kim and US President Donald Trump early last year over what the nuclear-armed North would be willing to give up in exchange for a loosening of sanctions.

The impoverished country is subject to multiple UN Security Council sanctions over its banned weapons programmes.

But the CMC meeting dis-cussed “bolstering the war deterrent”, KCNA said, and Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said it was “by no means done threatening South Korea”.

People wearing face masks walk during the evening rush hour from Shinagawa railway station in Tokyo, yesterday.

Office cluster pushes viruscases in Tokyo to new highREUTERS — TOKYO

The daily number of new corona-virus cases in Tokyo climbed to 55 yesterday, Governor Yuriko Koike said, the highest tally in 1-1/2 months after a cluster of infections was found at an unnamed office in the Japanese capital.

“Fifty-five daily cases was a bit of a shock to me when I first heard it,” Koike told reporters. “But our current situation is dif-ferent from back in March and April, namely because our medical system is significantly different.”

The metropolis, with a pop-ulation of 14 million, has sought to keep new cases below 20 a day since Japan lifted a state of emergency on May 25. Tokyo has said it could re-impose

restrictions if the figure crept up to 50 or more - something that last happened on May 5.

Of the 55 new cases, nine were confirmed at the workplace, which already had seven recorded infections, Koike said. The new cases might have emerged outside the office where the employees had a meeting, she said.

Speaking before the latest figure was reported, Koike had warned of a “large number” on Wednesday as more positive test results followed a cluster of seven infections previously found at the office.

“Clusters in the workplace have become a big problem lately” as people have emerged from the capital’s ‘Stay Home’ ini-tiative, she told reporters earlier.

Evacuations likely as volcano

grows restive in Philippines

AP — MANILA

Philippine villagers near a restive volcano on a central island are bracing for possible evacuations that would require physical distancing because of the coronavirus pandemic, an official said yesterday.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it detected dozens of small earthquakes on the western flank of Kanlaon volcano, which emitted plumes of steam up to 300M in the air overnight. Kanlaon on Negros island is one of about two dozen active volcanoes in the Philippines.

Those signs, along with a slight bulging of Kanlaon’s slope, “indicate that hydro-thermal or magmatic activity

is occurring beneath the edifice,” the institute said.

It added that the volcano “is at an abnormal condition and has entered a period of unrest.” Zeaphard Caelian, who heads the disaster response agency in Negros Occidental province, said authorities issued an initial alert in March after Kanlaon began showing signs of res-tiveness, which intensified last weekend.

More than 20,000 people in eight villages within 6 to 12 km of Kanlaon would have to be evacuated if the volcano shows signs of an imminent eruption. Officials are identi-fying evacuation centres where physical distancing could to be observed to prevent the spread of the coro-navirus, Caelian said.

Pro-democracy protests mark anniversary of Thai revolutionAFP — BANGKOK

Thais yesterday marked the anniversary of a 1932 revolution which ended absolute monarchy with heavily symbolic events, demanding reforms to a political system dominated by the arch-royalist army.

Protesters dressed as sol-diers and a pre-dawn holo-graphic display were among the subversive ways activists chose to commemorate the kingdom’s transition from absolutism to a constitutional monarchy on June 24, 1932.

Marking the revolution has become increasingly taboo under the government of former army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha.

The military describes itself

as the protector of the king-dom’s unassailable monarchy, which is headed by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

He is shielded from crit-icism by harsh lese majeste laws. “We will revive the soul of the People’s Party from 88 years ago,” said Anon Numpa, an activist lawyer who organised the rally.

After years of coups, violent crackdowns and short-lived civilian governments Thailand remains a country sharply divided.

The arch-royalist estab-lishment holds power but is facing an increasingly bold youth-focused movement, fuelled by social media and tired of the kingdom’s yawning inequality and con-

stricted freedoms.A projection near

Democracy Monument — which was covered in a bar-ricade and ringed by police —included a recording of the dec-laration by the People’s Party, a group of military and civil officers who staged the 1932 bloodless coup.

Later, at parliament, pro-testers unveiled a replica of a small bronze plaque marking the 1932 anniversary.

The original was embedded in the ground of Bangkok’s Royal Plaza for decades before it mysteriously vanished in 2017.

Activists say the missing plaque is emblematic of a wider whitewashing of Thai political history.

7 Afghan military

personnel die in

Taliban raid

AFP — HERAT

Taliban fighters killed as many as seven Afghan commandos in an hours-long attack on an army outpost, a lawmaker and the defence ministry said yesterday.

The assault comes as Kabul authorities accuse the insur-gents of stepping up attacks against security forces in recent weeks, after violence dropped across much of the country following a three-day ceasefire announced in May.

The Taliban raided the army outpost located in northwest Badhis province late on Tuesday.

Badghis lawmaker Ziauddin Akazi said the insur-gents attacked the Bala Murghab district outpost, trig-gering fierce fighting that lasted for about four hours.

“Most of those killed were members of commando and special forces,” Akazi said.

He said the attack came when a group of commandos and special forces travelled to the outpost from their base nearby.

The flight data showed the landing gear was lowered at 10 nautical miles, Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said, but then raised again 5 nautical miles from the runway, which he described as “beyond comprehension”. But added that the pilots were not “focused” because of the pandemic.

12 THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020EUROPE

UK must prepare forsecond virus wave,medical experts warnREUTERS — LONDON

A second coronavirus wave is a real risk for the United Kingdom and local flare-ups are likely, major health bodies said yesterday, in one of the strongest warnings yet to Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he eases lockdown to help the economy.

The United Kingdom has one of the world’s third highest death tolls from COVID-19 but, with infections falling, plans to lift many restrictions from July 4 to help an economy facing the deepest contraction in three centuries.

A major second spike is the nightmare for leaders across the world as they would face blame for more deaths and may have to shutter economies again. Some of Britain’s most eminent health leaders, though, want urgent preparations for such a scenario.

“While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available

evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk,” the medics said in a letter in the British Medical Journal.

It was signed by 15 of the most eminent health profes-sional groups and trade unions including the heads of the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal

College of Emergency Medicine and the British Medical Association.

“Many elements of the infrastructure needed to contain the virus are beginning to be put in place, but substantial chal-lenges remain,” they wrote.

European nations emerging from painful shutdowns are nervously watching a new out-break at a meatpacking plant in Germany, where two municipal-ities have regressed to lockdown.

Announcing that England was rising from “hibernation”, Johnson is letting restaurants and hotels reopen from July 4. “While we remain vigilant, we do not believe that there is cur-rently a risk of a second peak of infections that might overwhelm the NHS,” he said on Tuesday.

The United Kingdom on Monday reported the lowest daily increase in deaths since lockdown in mid-March — just 15 — though the suspected overall toll has hit 54,139, the second highest after the United States.

Johnson, who was treated in intensive care for COVID-19 complications, has faced crit-icism from opposition parties for imposing the lockdown too late, failing to supply enough pro-tective equipment and dithering over a test-and-trace system.

The medics’ letter called for a review focussing on “areas of

weakness” to prevent a second wave in the interests of pro-tecting lives and restoring the economy as fast as possible.

Others signatories included Anne Marie Rafferty, president of the Royal College of Nursing, Maggie Rae, president of the Faculty of Public Health, and Richard Horton, editor-

in-chief of the Lancet.“We need to understand

how best to learn from other countries which seem to have managed the crisis differently and perhaps managed it better than we have in the UK,” Martin Marshall, president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, told the BBC.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson attending Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons in London, yesterday.

Macron to meet

Merkel in Germany

on Monday: French

presidency

AFP — PARIS

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Germany on Monday for his first in-person talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, ahead of Berlin taking the rotating European Union presidency, his office said.

Merkel will receive Macron at the government retreat of Meseberg castle north of the capital for talks followed by a press conference and a working dinner, the Elysee Palace said yesterday.

As Germany prepares to preside over the EU council for the second half of 2020, “this meeting reflects their common desire for close coordination between France and Germany, following the initiative of 18 May,” said the presidency.

This was the day they pro-posed a ¤500bn plan to help Europe emerge from the severe economic damage from the coronavirus epidemic and resulting continent-wide business closures.

The French-German pro-posal foresees the provision of grants, raised through EU bor-rowing, for countries most struggling to recover.

It will be on the agenda of a European summit in Brussels next month and requires unan-imous EU approval. Some coun-tries — the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Sweden, insist help should be in the form of loans, not grants.

German governor faces criticism over handling of virusAP — DUESSELDORF

The governor of Germany’s most populous state faced crit-icism yesterday over his handling of a major coronavirus outbreak at a slaughterhouse, as a partial lockdown took effect in part of the western region.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s state government on Tuesday announced the reimposition of many lockdown measures in Guetersloh county, home to the Toennies slaughterhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck, and neighboring Warendorf county,

where many of its workers live. Between them, the two districts have more than 600 ,000 inhabitants.

Well over 1,000 infections have been linked to the slaugh-terhouse, and state governor Armin Laschet said restrictions were being imposed for a week to “calm the situation,” expand testing and establish whether the virus has spread beyond employees.

Political opponents and other critics argue that he should have acted sooner. Laschet, who is also a contender for the leadership of Chancellor

Angela Merkel’s center-right party — and possibly to succeed Merkel as Germany’s leader - has been a leading advocate since April of easing corona-virus restricions.

“Today, Rheda-Wieden-brueck is the biggest hot spot in the whole of Europe,” centre-left opposition leader Thomas Kutschaty told the state par-liament in Duesseldorf.

“The state could have used a government that intervened quickly and deci-sively, and didn’t wait a week to prevent a second wave of infections rolling over all of

Germany and Europe.” “Now we can only hope that

it is not already too late,” Kut-schaty said.

Laschet strongly defended his stance. Speaking before Kut-schaty yesterday, he noted that his state has now become the first to significantly reverse the easing of restrictions.

Laschet said the restrictions earlier this year were all necessary.

“But I expect of everyone who carries responsibility, every head of government, that when he gets up in the morning he asks himself: is this

intervention in fundamental rights still necessary?” Laschet said.

And if he concludes that it is, it is extended — but he shouldn’t think every morning, what else could I restrict and ban?”

The 199-member state leg-islature was meeting at full strength for the first time since the pandemic hit Germany, with three-sided acrylic cabins set up around the seats to separate lawmakers. In recent weeks, only a third of lawmakers had been able to attend because of distancing rules.

Italy lawyers slam ‘dangerous’ media blackout at trialsAFP — ROME

Lawyers are sounding the alarm over the continued exclusion of the press from criminal hearings, despite the near total lifting of Italy’s coro-navirus lockdown.

“Restrictions have been eased for planes, trains, even nightclubs, but not for the justice system,” lawyer Renato Borzone said.

“Yet press access is one of those constitutional rights that cannot be surrendered, even in a state of emergency,” said Borzone, part of the defence team for one of two US students currently on trial in Rome over the death of a policeman.

It is particularly crucial to have press access to cases like his— in which the defence has accused the police of lying — to ensure those who administer justice are held to account, he said.

While all trials were tem-porarily halted as the pandemic gripped Italy at the start of March, criminal trials with defendants being held in jail were allowed to resume mid-April — but only behind closed doors.

An emergency government decree stated hearings could go ahead without the public or media present. In practice it is up to the judges sitting on a particular case to decide who is allowed into court.

That means many cases are off limits to all, with judges insisting the risk of contagion is still too high to allow journalists in.

Human rights lawyer Arturo Salerni, who made his name by taking on former far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini over his decree closing ports to migrant rescue vessels, said banning the media from courts sets a dangerous precedent.

“It’s clear that it could be

done in an extreme emergency, but it seems clear to me that we are beyond that,” he said.

“In a democracy, trials are public. If you make an exception to the rule, and that exception is extended beyond the period it was strictly nec-essary — in this case March and April — it’s clear the democratic nature of our trials is in danger.” Salerni said he did not think the situation would return to normal until Sep-tember, despite all trials resuming in July.

Rome’s criminal chamber is “making a series of proposals in an attempt to find a solution,” said lawyer Carlo della Vedova, who defended the American Amanda Knox when she was tried for the murder of her British housemate in Perugia.

Their task was no easy one however, as it was not clear how to interpret the rules in the last government decree, he said.

The stop to trials had caused a “disastrous” backlog, he said, and risked dealing a severe blow to justice because the clock was still ticking on the statute of limitations for pros-ecuting crimes.

“It’s total anarchy, as can only happen in Italy,” said Borzone, whose request last week for the US students’ trial to be reopened to the media was rejected.

Under the UN human rights act, states can derogate from their obligations in time of public emergency — but not from a series of essential rights, such as the right to freedom of thought.

And under the Italian con-stitution, right to freedom of thought means “the press may not be subjected to any author-isation or censorship”.

Excluding the press “seems a particularly grave move, par-ticularly by the very people who are supposed to guarantee the law and rights,” Borzone said.

France's Orly Airport gears up for reopening

Workers remove posts during preparations with new health and safety measures for passengers before the re-opening of Orly Airport following the coronavirus disease outbreak in France, yesterday.

Top French historian flays Macron’s stance on statuesAFP — PARIS

A leading historian attacked French President Emmanuel Macron’s stance on disputed statues linked to the country’s colonial past Wednesday, saying he had “hugely confused” history and memory.

Macron all but ignored the wave of Black Lives Matter pro-tests in a major television address last week except to warn that France would not take down statues of contro-versial historical figures.

“The Republic will not wipe away any trace or any name from its history... but lucidly look at our history and our memory together,” the pres-ident said.

But historian Nicolas Offen-stadt pulled him up sharply, telling French radio that Macron had a made a “hugely damaging confusion between history and memory that will not help public debate in France.”

His intervention comes after Oscar-nominated black

filmmaker Raoul Peck accused France of being in denial of its racism, its colonial past and its wealth “built on the misery of others”.

The former Haitian culture minister, who has long lived in France, said protesters who have taken to the streets in the US and France “are right to rise up. They are right to protest, they may even be right to smash everything,” he added.

A statue of the 17th-century statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert in front of the French par-liament was sprayed with graffiti on Tuesday night con-demning the “negrophobie d’Etat” (the state’s fear of black people).

Colbert was responsible for drawing up the notorious Code Noir (Black Code) governing slavery in the French empire for the “Sun King” Louis XIV in 1685, and for banning Jews from its colonies.

A statue of colonial admin-istrator General Louis Faid-herbe has also sparked prtoests

in the northern city of Lille. Offenstadt, who is best

known for groundbreaking books on French soldiers shot by firing squad during the First World War, and the former East Germany, said memory and history were two very different things.

He said memory, which is often symbolised by statues, is “something a lot more lived, more personal, subjective, chosen and more intense.

“We can unbolt a statue... that is not rewriting history. No one can rewrite history,” Offen-stadt said. “But memory is something we chose and which we promote collectively together,” the historian added.

Offenstadt said Macron should have encouraged a wide debate between historians and the public and let people explain their problems with monuments linked to slavery and colonialism rather than trying to close the argument down.

Between toppling and statue and keeping it in place

there was a huge range of solu-tions and compromises, he argued.

Plaques could put them in context and offer other narratives, he insisted, some statues could be placed in museums, and others could be made to face off with counter monuments to show how history was disputed.

Macron admitted that colonial rule had left a legacy that remains a subject of anger for many to this day.

And he acknowledged that France had to fight against the fact that your “name, address, and colour of your skin” can affect a person’s life chances today.

But he insisted that France was “nation where everyone —whatever their origin and religion — can find their place.”

Many activists disagree however, and Human Rights Watch has urged France to halt identity checks by the police that are “abusive and discrim-inatory” towards black and Arab males.

“While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk,” the medics said in a letter in the British Medical Journal.

13THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020 EUROPE

Russia stages grand WWII parade ahead of vote on Putin reforms

AFP — MOSCOW

Columns of tanks and troops paraded through Moscow on yesterday as Russian President Vladimir Putin presided over grand World War II commem-orations to stir up patriotic fervour ahead of a vote on extending his rule.

Putin was flanked on Red Square by elderly war veterans in uniforms laden with medals as thousands of troops carrying bright banners and Kalash-nikov rifles marched in the blazing sun to mark the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany.

Forced to postpone the tra-ditional May 9 Victory Day cel-ebrations by the coronavirus pandemic, Putin rescheduled the parade for just a week before the July 1 vote on con-troversial constitutional reforms.

Among other changes, the reforms Putin proposed earlier this year would reset his pres-idential term-limit clock to zero, allowing him to run two more times and potentially stay in the Kremlin until 2036.

“It is impossible even to imagine what the world would be if the Red Army hadn’t come to defend it,” the president said in an address to troops fol-lowing a minute of silence to remember soldiers who died in the fighting.

Putin hailed the Soviet role in World War II praising the Red army for liberating Europe, ending the Holocaust and saving Germany from Nazism, saying it was “our duty to keep this in mind”.

Last month he announced the new dates for both the parade and the vote — initially planned for April – despite Russia still recording thousands of new coronavirus cases every day.

The rate of new infections has fallen in recent weeks and cities including Moscow have lifted anti-virus lockdowns, but critics accuse Putin of rushing ahead with public events to pursue his own political ends.

This year’s parade, marking 75 years since the Nazi defeat, showcased 14,000 troops from 13 countries, as well as vintage equipment and the country’s latest military hardware.

The date coincides with the anniversary of the first post-war parade on Red Square, when Soviet troops threw down Nazi standards in front of the Lenin mausoleum on June 24, 1945.

In his two decades in office, Putin has harnessed the legacy of the Soviet victory to boost patriotic sentiment and support for his government.

Ahead of the parade, he slammed the West for “insulting Russia” by playing down the

USSR’s role in winning the war.Chinese leader Xi Jinping

and French President Emmanuel Macron had been scheduled, before the pan-demic, to stand with the Kremlin chief at the parade, in a testament to Russia’s growing international influence under Putin.

Instead Putin sat with the heads of former Soviet republics like Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko.

With more than 8,000 recorded deaths and over 600,000 confirmed infections, Russia has the third-largest coronavirus caseload in the world after the United States and Brazil.

The Kremlin said safety precautions were observed in the lead-up to the parade, but participants were not wearing masks.

The parade was held despite a ban on mass gath-erings remaining in place.

Dozens of regions decided to drop their own parades, fearing a surge in cases, but festivities went ahead in many cities including Saint Petersburg, Volgograd and Simferopol in Russia-annexed Crimea.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sob-yanin advised people to watch the procession on television rather than attend in person. The veterans were quarantined ahead of the event in sanatoriums.

But crowds gathered along the route of the parade mostly ignored social distancing advice, with only a fraction of the spectators in masks, wit-nesses saw.

“I think it’s a great day for a Victory parade,” said

70-year-old Natalia Kapustina watching military hardware roll by on the central Garden Ring.

“It’s wonderful! I’m proud of our Motherland, that our country has such equipment and that we’ve got everything we need,” said 36-year-old Maria Velikanova.

Officials say precautions are also being taken for the constitutional vote, with early balloting starting on Thursday and continuing through to the official vote day on July 1.

Chief opposition figure Alexei Navalny has criticised authorities for spending vast sums on the parade and urged his supporters to boycott the ballot.

“One crazy, greedy man who has gone mad with power is making the whole country engage in delirium,” he said.

Ceremonial soldiers parade during the Victory Day at Red Square, in Moscow, yesterday.

Virus casesin Russiareach 606,881

ANATOLIA — MOSCOW

With 7,176 new coronavirus cases registered in Russia over the last 24 hours, the country’s total infections hit 606,881 yesterday.

Over the same period, 12,393 COVID-19 recoveries were recorded, taking the tally to 368,822, the Russian emer-gency task force said in a daily report.

The death toll from the disease rose by 154 to reach 8,513, it added.

Several Russian regions, including Nenets Autonomous Okrug, have not reported new cases for more than a week.

In his address to the nation on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country managed to make the outbreak “recede” and “reach a turning point”. But he also warned the citizens “to remain focused, careful, and alert, especially until the mass production of an effective preventive medicine begins”.

Putin stressed that the coronavirus figures are still high in a number of Russian regions, including Tyva, Karachay-Cherkessia, the Yamalo-Nenets, and Khanty-Mansi autonomous areas.

Russia uses testing as one of the preventive measures, the president said, claiming that Russia is carrying out more tests per 1,000 patients com-pared to the world’s other major countries.

“The total number of tests exceeds 17 million, such a large number of tests helping identify the disease at its early stages even if it is symptom-free, which means breaking the infection chain and preventing it from spreading. This saves our people’s lives,” he added.

Currently, 14 Russian federal scientific centres are working on a vaccine against the virus, Putin said, adding that clinical tests of the first samples have already begun, and despite “an under-standable impatience” the sci-entists are led by the medical principle of “do no harm”.

There must be “100 percent confidence” that the vaccine is effective, reliable and safe for people of all ages and in all states of health, Putin noted.

Migrant workers need support, jobs at home after pandemic: ILOREUTERS — GENEVA

The UN labour agency appealed to governments yesterday to support tens of millions of migrant workers forced to return to their homelands due to the coronavirus pandemic only to face unemployment and poverty.

Governments should include returning workers, many of whom had lost jobs overnight, in their social pro-tection measures and reinte-grate them into national labour

markets, the International Labour Organisation said in a report.

“This is a potential crisis within a crisis,” Manuela Tomei, director of the ILO’s conditions of work and equality department, told a news conference.

There are an estimated 164 million migrant workers worldwide, nearly half of them women, accounting for 4.7 percent of the global labour force, according to the ILO. Many work in health care,

transport, domestic work and agriculture.

Their remittances are key for their families and economies back home, Tomei said, citing a report from the World Bank that a $100bn drop in remit-tances was forecast by year-end.

Nearly a million migrant workers have returned to South Asia alone, said Michelle Leighton, chief of labour migration at ILO.

They include 500,000 Nepalese who returned from

India, more than 250,000 Bangladeshis from the Middle East, 130,000 Indonesians, 100,000 Burmese and 50,000 Filipinos, mostly seafarers, ILO figures show.

Ethiopia expects from 200,000-500,000 migrants to return by year-end, Leighton added.

“There are serious problems with their eligibility for social protection, when they come back, for instance they are not able to take their social security entitlement and that is a

function of the need for coop-eration between the sending and receiving countries,” Leighton said.

Large numbers of migrant workers in the Gulf are affected by job losses, with more than 90,000 believed to have left Kuwait since April, said Ryszard Cholewinski of ILO’s Beirut office. But not all left jobless in the Gulf want to repatriate, he said, adding that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have relaxed restrictions on changing employers.

Croatia mulls border restrictions for other Balkan countriesAP — ZAGREB

Croatia yesterday was mulling whether to partially restore border restrictions for the citizens of several other Balkan countries after a spike in cases of the coronavirus and an outbreak at an exhibition tennis tournament organised by top-ranked Novak Djokovic.

Croatia’s crisis team is yet to decide whether to impose stricter control and possibly 14-day isolation for travelers coming in from Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia, officials said.

The European Union country on Tuesday reported 30 new coronavirus cases, including a dozen among nuns at a convent in a central region. Croatia has had 2,366 cases of infection while 107 people died.

Dozens of new infections are being reported daily in Serbia, Bosnia and other Balkan nations that have seen a spike after relaxing anti-virus rules.

Tennis star Djokovic has tested positive for the virus, along with three more players who took part in the charity tournament in the coastal Croatian town of Zadar. Dozens more people are being tested in the town, who participated or visited the event.

They included Croatian

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who has been criti-cized just days before a parlia-mentary vote on July 5 for not self-isolating after an encounter with Djokovic. Plenkovic has tested negative and says he only briefly saw the Serb player.

“There has been no close contact. All epidemiologists explained that. That topic is fin-ished,” he told reporters Wednesday, according to N1 tel-evision. Croatia reopened its borders before the summer tourism season - the tourism industry is key for the nation’s economy, which is among the weakest in the EU.

In Serbia, authorities on Tuesday made wearing masks on public transit obligatory while reporting 102 new cases. Lockdown measures in the country have been loose and epidemiologists are facing public backlash for not reacting before holding a national election last weekend that cemented the the ruling populists’grip on power.

Djokovic’s charity Adria Tour had opened in Serbia earlier this month, when thou-sands also attended soccer matches without respecting social distancing rules or wearing masks. Serbia has had 13,092 cases of infection and 263 deaths.

Doctors and healthcare workers wearing surgical masks protest against the government’s health reforms, the closure of medical facilities and low wages outside the Kiev City Hall, in Ukraine.

Protest against health reforms

Bulgaria to extend virus emergency until July 15REUTERS — SOFIA

Bulgaria will extend a state of emergency declared in response to the coronavirus outbreak until July 15 after another jump in new registered cases, Health Minister Kiril Ananiev said yesterday.

Bulgaria began to relax restrictions to stop the spread of the virus earlier this month, but last week it reported 606 new COVID-19 cases, its highest weekly rise since the epidemic.

Some 130 new cases were reported yesterday, bringing the total to date to 4,114, with 208 deaths. The latest jump prompted Ananiev’s decision to reimpose the mask requirement at all indoor public venues, including trains and buses.

“We have an increase of the intensity of the epidemic and an increase of coronavirus spread,” Ananiev told a government meeting.

He said the average daily

number of people infected with coronavirus from June 10 to June 24 jumped more than three times (from 26 to 84 cases in a single day) compared with the previous two-week period.

Ananiev said the Black Sea state would not impose new measures or bring back tougher restrictions, but would step up controls on social distancing, obligatory face masks indoors and will keep travel bans for most countries outside the EU.

Swiss govt to

assume COVID-19

test costs, launch

tracing appREUTERS — ZURICH

Switzerland’s government will pay for coronavirus testing, it said yesterday, as it approved the launch of its proximity tracing app from today to prevent a resurgence of the virus as restrictions are relaxed.

The government said it would take over costs for all virus and antibody tests, and would simplify the system for testing, effective from today, the same day when an app to alert individuals potentially exposed to the virus will go live.

Switzerland’s restrictions have been eased in recent weeks, with shops and schools reopening, along with restau-rants — although with limits on the number of people allowed to be present.

Until now, coronavirus tests were partly paid for by the regional governments and indi-vidual health insurance schemes, meaning some people had to pay themselves.

“This scheme has meant that not all patients have been treated the same,” the gov-ernment said.

“There has been a danger that people are not being tested when they have to pay for it themselves.” It said it would pay 169 Swiss francs ($178.72) for virus tests and 113 francs for antibody tests.

So far 1,682 people have died in Switzerland from COVID-19. While the country’s infection rate has slowed, with 31,376 people testing positive for the virus, new infections ticked up yesterday, , with 44 more cases than the day before.

Putin rescheduled the parade for just a week before the July 1 vote on controversial constitutional reforms. Among other changes, the reforms Putin proposed earlier this year would reset his presidential term-limit clock to zero, allowing him to run two more times and potentially stay in the Kremlin until 2036.

14 THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020AMERICAS

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut toquarantine visitors from virus hotspots

REUTERS — NEW YORK

As the number of new corona-virus cases surged in many areas of the United States, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — once at the epicentre of the outbreak — will require visitors from states with high infection rates to quarantine on arrival.

The announcement yes-terday came a day after the country recorded the second-largest increase in coronavirus cases since the health crisis began in early March. There were nearly 36,000 new infec-tions nationwide on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally.

States subject to the 14-day quarantine are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Washington and Utah, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a briefing.

“This is a smart thing to do,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said via video at a joint news conference in New York City.

“We have taken our people, the three of us from these three states, through hell and back, and the last thing we need to do right now is subject our folks to another round.”

While the United States

appeared to have curbed the outbreak in May, leading many states to lift restrictions on social and economic activity, the virus is moving into rural areas and other places that it had not initially penetrated deeply.

The virus is also renewing its surge in states that opened up early to ease the devastating effect of the restrictions on local economies.

Florida, one of the first states to reopen, yesterday experienced a record increase of more than 5,500 new cases. Oklahoma, which never ordered a statewide lockdown, posted record new cases yes-terday, the sixth time it has shattered that record.

On Tuesday, Arizona, Cal-ifornia, Mississippi and Nevada had record rises. Texas set an all-time high on Monday.

The surge in cases nationwide on Tuesday was the highest since a record of 36,426 new infections on April 24.

The New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area has lowered its infection rate after locking down much of its economy.

Visitors found violating the new quarantine order in the three Northeast states could face fines of $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for repeat

offences, Cuomo said.The order will take effect

from midnight. “So get on a flight quickly,” he said.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said officials would carefully monitor travel from states with high infection rates.

“If you come to Con-necticut, you come to New York, you come to New Jersey, you come safely, you follow the protocols,” said Lamont.

Such quarantines are not unprecedented.

Hawaii requires visitors from the US mainland to self-quarantine for two weeks. Florida and Texas at one point

required people coming in from New York area airports to quarantine for two weeks.

The US Department of Justice has filed its support for a lawsuit challenging Hawaii’s quarantine, saying visitors are being denied rights granted to most island residents.

While some of the increased numbers of cases can be attributed to more testing, the numbers do not correlate.

The average number of tests has risen 7.6 percent over the last seven days, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project, while the

average number of new cases rose 30 percent.

The percentage of positive tests is also rising.

At least four states are averaging double-digit rates of positive tests for the virus, such as Arizona at 20 percent. By contrast, New York has been reporting positive test rates of around 1 percent.

The European Union hopes to reopen borders from July but will review individual nations’ COVID-19 situation fortnightly, according to dip-lomats and a document laying out criteria that could keep Americans and Russians out.

A man has his temperature checked before entering the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue as the city moves into phase two re-opening after coronavirus pandemic, in New York City.

Under fire from

Democrats,

Attorney-General

Barr to testify

on July 28

REUTERS — WASHINGTON

US Attorney General William Barr, under fire from Demo-crats for actions they view as politically motivated, will testify before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on July 28, a Justice Department spokeswoman said yesterday.

The Democratically-led committee held a hearing on yesterday to scrutinise numerous examples in which they said Barr, the top US law enforcement official, had improperly meddled in inves-tigations or taken other steps to benefit President Donald Trump.

“Mr Barr’s work at the Department of Justice has nothing to do with correcting injustice. He is the president’s fixer. He has shown us that there is one set of rules for the president’s friends, and another set of rules for the rest of us,” the committee’s chairman, Jerrold Nadler, said.

Yesterday’s hearing fea-tured testimony from two current Justice Department employees who took the unusual step of publicly blowing the whistle against their own employer.

One employee, federal prosecutor Aaron Zelinksy, testified that the US Attorney’s office in Washington was pres-sured from the “highest levels” of the Justice Department to scale back its sentencing rec-ommendation for Trump’s longtime friend, Roger Stone.

The second employee, antitrust attorney John Elias, testified about the about the politicisation of antitrust probes into marijuana com-panies and the auto sector.

Yesterday’s hearing got off to a stormy start, with Repub-licans like Representative Doug Collins repeatedly inter-rupting what would normally be a ponderous hearing to argue that opponents of Trump were favored, while critics were cut short.

US Senate police reform vote fails as Democrats reject Republican billREUTERS — WASHINGTON

A Republican bill to rein in police misconduct in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis failed in the US Senate yesterday, leaving congressional efforts to address racial inequities in American policing at an impasse.

Democrats, denouncing the measure as irrevocably flawed, defeated a motion to move to final debate by a vote of 55-45, short of the 60 votes needed, a

month after Floyd’s death in police custody set off weeks of worldwide protests against police brutality.

The measure was also opposed by civil rights leaders and activist groups.

The legislative fight now moves to the House of Repre-sentatives, which plans to vote on a Democratic bill today.

Senate Republicans warned that failure to advance the leg-islation could mean a political stalemate. But with public

sentiment for police reform running high, Democrats held out hope that the bill’s failure would pressure Republicans to agree to bipartisan negotiations on new legislation.

Floyd’s May 25 death in Minneapolis, after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, sparked weeks of protests and stirred strong US public sen-timent for stopping excessive force by police, especially against African Americans.

But a month later, Repub-licans and Democrats in Con-gress are pursuing partisan bills with little chance of winning approval from the Senate and the House of Rep-resentatives and being signed into law by President Donald Trump.

The sweeping Democratic bill in the House includes a provision to remove qualified immunity protections for police and allow victims of misconduct to sue for financial

damages.Republicans warn that

eroding qualified immunity could have a chilling effect on law enforcement.

But a Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted June 22-23, found that Americans favor removing the protections at a nearly two-to-one rate, 49 percent to 26 percent. Republicans were split evenly on the issue, with 38 percent favouring removal and 37 percent opposing such a move.

US Appeals Court ordersdismissal of criminalcase against Flynn

REUTERS — WASHINGTON

A US appeals court yesterday directed a federal judge to drop a criminal case against Pres-ident Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI, handing a victory to the Justice Department in another twist to the politically charged case.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favour of Flynn and the Trump administration in preventing US District Judge Emmet Sullivan from exer-cising his discretion on whether to grant the depart-ment’s motion to clear Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty.

The ruling prevents Sul-livan from hearing arguments at a July 16 hearing from retired judge John Gleeson, whom he appointed as a “friend of the court” to argue against dropping the case.

“In this case, the district court’s actions will result in specific harms to the exercise of the executive branch’s exclusive prosecutorial power,” wrote Judge Neomi Rao, who was appointed by

Trump.“The contemplated pro-

ceedings would likely require the Executive to reveal the internal deliberative process behind its exercise of prose-cutorial discretion,” she added.

A source familiar with the matter said that yesterday’s ruling will likely be appealed to a larger panel of the federal appeals court.

Flynn, a retired Army lieu-tenant general, was one of several former Trump aides charged under former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that detailed Moscow’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

Flynn twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russia’s then-ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.

He then switched lawyers to pursue a new scorched-earth tactic that accused the FBI of entrapping him, and asked the judge to dismiss the charge.

Trump, who has signaled a possible pardon for Flynn, has publicly assailed the case and lamented that his former aide has been “tormented.”

Yesterday’s ruling is likely to anger Democrats, who have accused Attorney General William Barr of improperly meddling in criminal cases to help benefit Trump’s friends and political allies.

Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama administrat ion appointee, dissented.

He said the Justice Depart-ment’s flip-flop on the case raised questions that merited further scrutiny by the District Court.

“In 2017, the then-Acting Attorney General told the Vice President that Flynn’s false statements ‘posed a potential compromise situation for Flynn’ with the Russians,” Wilkins wrote.

“Now, in a complete reversal, the government says

none of this is true.” “This is no mere about-face; it is more akin to turning around an air-craft carrier.”

A f t e r t h e J u s t i c e Department took the highly unusual step of seeking to abandon the case against Flynn, Sullivan appointed Gleeson to argue against the Justice Department’s request.

He also asked Gleeson to weigh in on whether Sullivan should hold Flynn in contempt for lying when pleading guilty.

Sullivan has said he cannot serve as a “rubber stamp” and must carefully review the facts in this “unprecedented” request.

In the majority opinion on Wednesday, the appeals court called Sullivan’s appointment of Gleeson “troubling,” and

said it was granting Flynn’s petition to get the case dis-missed to “prevent the judicial usurpation of executive power.”

Gleeson had urged Sullivan to proceed with sentencing Flynn and accused the department of “gross abuse of prosecutorial power” in to “provide special treatment to a favored friend and political ally of the President of the United States.”

Beth Wilkinson, a veteran Washington trial lawyer who argued the case on Judge Sul-livan’s behalf before the appeals court, declined to comment.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department was “pleased” with Wednesday’s decision.

A file photo of former US national security adviser Michael Flynn passing by members of the media as he departs after his sentencing was delayed at a US District Court, in Washington, DC.

US sanctions 5 Iranian ship captains for bringing oil to Venezuela REUTERS — WASHINGTON

The United States yesterday imposed sanctions on five Iranian ship captains who had delivered oil to Venezuela, and the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed Washing-ton’s backing for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Speaking at a press con-ference at the State Department, Pompeo said the ships delivered around 15mn barrels of Iranian gasoline and related compo-nents, and warned any mariners against doing business with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose ouster Washington wants.

“As a result of today’s sanc-tions, these captains’ assets will be blocked. Their careers and prospects will suffer from this designation,” Pompeo said in a statement later.

“Mariners who are consid-ering work with Iran and Ven-ezuela should understand that aiding these oppressive regimes is simply not worth the risk,” he said.

The Trump administration, which is seeking both to block Iran’s energy trade and bring down Maduro, has threatened reprisals and warned ports, shipping companies and insurers against facilitating the tankers. The Opec member’s exports are hovering near their lowest levels in more than 70 years and the economy has col-lapsed, but Maduro has held on — to the frustration of the administration of US President Donald Trump.

States subject to the 14-day quarantine are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Washington and Utah, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a briefing.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favour of Flynn and the Trump administration in preventing US District Judge Emmet Sullivan from exercising his discretion on whether to grant the department’s motion to clear Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty.

15THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020 AMERICAS

Georgia legislature passes hate crimes billAP — ATLANTA

Georgia’s legislature on Tuesday passed hate crimes legislation deemed essential by state leaders, sending the measure to Gov Brian Kemp’s desk.

The price Republicans exacted for moving that legis-lation forward was simultaneous passage of a bill that would mandate penalties for crimes tar-geting police and other first responders. The action comes after Senate Republicans had added police as a protected class to the hate crimes legislation last week in committee, but then later moved those protections to a sep-arate bill in a deal between the parties.

Democrats yesterday voted overwhelmingly against House Bill 838, which includes the increased protections for first responders. The hate crimes leg-islation, House Bill 426, had bipartisan support, though some conservatives voted against it.

Kemp’s office said in a statement that he’ll sign the hate crimes bill, pending a legal review.

“Victims need protection against any attack motivated by hatred due to bias or prejudice,” said Senator Donzella James, a Democrat from Atlanta, who spoke about her own experiences facing discrimination as a Black woman.

“House Bill 426 is a measured

approach at doing all of the things that we n eed to do to treat this injustice. It’s time that Georgia rise up and show that we will not stand for crimes done out of hate.”

A push for passage of the hate crimes bill has gained momentum after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, as well as nationwide protests of racial injustice and police brutality. Arbery, a Black man, was pursued and fatally shot near Brunswick, Georgia, in February. Three white men, including a father and son, are charged in his death. The hate crimes bill would impose additional penalties for crimes motivated by a victim’s race, colour, religion, national origin, sex, orientation, gender or disability.

House Speaker David Ralston, who had heavily pres-sured the Senate to act on the measure, congratulated law-makers after the House agreed 127-38 to the Senate changes on

the hate crimes legislation.“Today we can all stand

together. Today we have said that we will not be defined by a senseless act of evil, and by the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, but that our Georgia is better than this,” Ralston said.

Bipartisan support for the hate crimes measure was thrown in doubt after Senate Republicans added “status of being or having been a first responder” as a pro-tected class in a committee last week. The ACLU, NAACP and House and Senate Democratic caucuses are among groups that came out against the bill with the first responder provision added. But the language protecting police and other emergency responders was removed on Monday in a deal that saw police protections split off into a sep-arate bill.

Most of the ‘no’ votes on the hate crimes bill in the House came from Republicans. Rep Ed Setzler expressed discontent that

the Senate had added data col-lection and reporting require-ments that some conservatives dislike because it will require reports be sent to the state even when charges aren’t filed. Others maintained a philosophical dis-agreement with the measure, like Rep Matt Gurtler, a Republican from Tiger who is seeking the GOP nomination in a congres-sional race.

“We should not be lowering

and highering the standard of justice based on immutable factors such as race, ethnicity and gender,” Gurtler said.

Many critics of the legislation containing enhanced police pro-tections say that the law isn’t needed because Georgia already has strong protections for law enforcement. Marissa McCall Dodson, public policy director for the Southern Center for Human Rights, urged lawmakers to vote

down the bill providing increased protection for police, saying in a statement that it “creates a hate crime for cops and other first responders.” Dodson added, “There is no need to increase punishments for people who commit crimes against first responders because Georgia law already provides adequate pro-tection as well as enhanced pen-alties when first responders are the victims of crime.”

Protesters march in the street during a rally against racial inequality and the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Charleston votes to remove statue of slavery advocateAP — CHARLESTON

Officials in the historic South Carolina city of Charleston voted unanimously on Tuesday to remove a statue of former vice president and slavery advocate John C Calhoun from a downtown square, the latest in a wave of actions arising from protests against racism and police brutality against African Americans.

Council members approved the measure 13-0 at a late-day meeting. The resolution authorises the removal of the statue of the former US vice pres-ident and senator from South Carolina from atop a 100-foot monument in downtown Marion Square. City officials said even-tually that the Calhoun statue will

be placed permanently at “an appropriate site where it will be protected and preserved.”

Just before midnight on Tuesday the Charleston Police Department tweeted that, “Calhoun Street between Meeting Street and King Street is closed for the removal of the John C. Calhoun statue,” adding that the street will be closed for several hours.

The vote comes a week after the mayor, John Tecklenburg, announced he would send the resolution to the City Council. He also took part in the vote.

“I believe that we are setting a new chapter, a more equitable chapter, in our city’s history,” Tecklenburg said, just before the vote.

“We are making the right

step. It’s just simply the right thing for us to do.” Council members heard from dozens of residents for and against the statue’s removal. Councilman Karl L Brady Jr said he knew his support may cost him votes but that he was voting his con-science in a move he said shows that, in Charleston, “we place white supremacy and white supremacist thought back where it belongs — on the ash heap of history.”

The move comes days after the fifth anniversary of the slaying of nine Black parish-ioners in a racist attack at a downtown Charleston church. It also comes as cities around the US debate the removal of mon-uments to Confederate leaders and others after the policy

custody death of a Black man, George Floyd, in Minnesota.

The ultimate resting place of the statue has yet to be deter-mined, a decision that will be left up to a special panel. The mayor has anticipated it would go to a local museum or educa-tional institution.

Last Wednesday when Teck-lenburg announced his plans to remove the statue, dozens of pro-testers linked arms around the monument, shouting, “Take it down!” Video posted on Twitter also showed signs and spray-painting on the monument. Police said they made several arrests for vandalism and ulti-mately closed off the area over-night. In the heart of downtown Charleston, Calhoun towers over a sprawling square

frequented by locals and tourists alike that is a frequent venue for festivals and large public events. Several organ-isers have said recently that they would no longer use the space while the statue remained. About 40 percent of enslaved Africans brought to North America came through the port city of Charleston, which formally apologised in 2018 for its role in the slave trade. In its resolution, the city says the statue, in place since 1898, “is seen by many people as something other than a memorial to the accomplish-ments of a South Carolina native, but rather a symbol glo-rifying slavery and as such, a painful reminder of the history of slavery in Charleston.”

Trump’s brother

seeks to block

niece’s unflattering

memoir: Report

AFP — WASHINGTON

One of Donald Trump’s brothers requested a restraining order to block publication of a potentially explosive book written by the US president’s niece, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Mary Trump will release her no-holds-barred memoir Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, on July 28, according to pub-lishing house Simon & Schuster.

Robert S Trump, the presi-dent’s younger brother, asked a court in the New York borough of Queens to block the book’s publication, alleging that Mary Trump was violating a nondisclosure agreement related to the settlement of the estate of Fred Trump, her grandfather — and Donald Trump’s father.

“Her attempt to sensation-alizse and mischaracterise our family relationship after all of these years for her own financial gain is both a travesty and injustice to the memory of... our beloved parents,” Robert S Trump said in a statement cited by the newspaper.

“I and the rest of my entire family are so proud of my won-derful brother, the president, and feel that Mary’s actions are truly a disgrace,” he said in the statement.

According to Simon & Schuster, the memoir “shines a bright light on the dark history” of the president’s family. The 240-page book will detail events Mary Trump witnessed as a child while spending time at her grandparents’ house in Queens, where her uncle and his four siblings grew up.

Mexico President sayswill meet with Trump inJuly, urges Canada to joinREUTERS — MEXICO CITY

Mexico’s president said yesterday it is “very probable” he will meet with his US coun-terpart Donald Trump in Wash-ington in July to mark the start of a new North American trade deal, and urged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to join them.

“We want the prime minister of Canada, Trudeau, to take part as well,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters at a regular morning news conference.

The Canadian government had no immediate comment. Trump on Tuesday said a meeting was likely. A White House official said planning was under way but that a specific

date had not yet been set. Lopez Obrador in April floated the idea of meeting Trump, but had recently talked down the prospect of an in-person encounter, suggesting they m i g h t t a l k v i a videoconference.

Some Mexican officials are privately sceptical about the benefits of a meeting with Trump, who is widely disliked in Mexico due to broadsides he fired off in his presidential cam-paign, calling Mexican migrants rapists and drug traffickers.

The Mexican opposition and even some inside the ruling party have criticised Lopez Obrador for yielding to Trump on migration and security after the US president threatened to slap trade tariffs on Mexico.

People whose apartments were affected by a quake, speak with Civil Protection engineers after spending the night at hotels, in Mexico City, yesterday, amid the new coronavirus pandemic. A 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico on Tuesday, killing six people, sending hundreds fleeing from their homes and forcing the closure of a major state-owned oil refinery.

Aftermath of Mexico earthquake

2 Republicans opposed by Trump win in North Carolina, KentuckyAP — LOUISVILLE

Voters rebuffed President Donald Trump and nominated two Republicans he opposed to House seats from North Carolina and Kentucky on Tuesday. Calls in higher-profile races in Kentucky and New York faced days of delay as swamped officials count mountains of mail-in ballots.

In western North Carolina, GOP voters picked 24-year-old investor Madison Cawthorn over Trump-backed real estate agent Lynda Bennett. The runoff was for the seat vacated by GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, who resigned to become Trump’s chief of staff and joined his new boss in backing Bennett.

Kentucky Republican Rep Thomas Massie, a libertarian-minded maverick who often clashes with GOP leaders, was renominated for a sixth House term. Trump savaged Massie in March as a “disaster for America” who should be ejected from the party after he forced lawmakers to return to Washington during a pandemic to vote on a huge economic relief package.

Cawthorn, who uses a wheel-chair following an accident, will meet the constitutionally man-dated minimum age of 25 when the next Congress convenes. Cawthorn has said he’s a Trump supporter, and Massie is strongly conservative. Still, their victories were an embarrassment to a

president whose own reelection campaign has teetered recently.

As states ease voting by mail because of the coronavirus pan-demic, a deluge of mail-in ballots and glacially slow counting pro-cedures made delays inevitable. That torturous wait seemed a preview of November, when more states will embrace mail-in voting and officials warn that uncertainty over who is the next president could linger for days.

Kentucky usually has 2 pecent of its returns come from mail ballots. This year officials expect that figure to exceed 50 percent, and over 400,000 mail ballots were returned by Sunday.

New York officials expect the vast majority of votes to be mail

ballots this year, compared to their typical 5 pecent share. Counties have until eight days after Election Day to count and release the results of mail ballots, with 1.7 million requested by voters.

In the day’s marquee con-tests, two African American can-didates with campaigns ener-gized by nationwide protests for racial justice were challenging white Democratic establishment favorites for the party’s nominations.

First-term state legislator Charles Booker was hoping a late surge would carry him past former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath for the Democratic Senate nomination from

Kentucky. And in New York, political newcomer Jamaal Bowman was seeking to derail House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel’s bid for a 17th term.

In Kentucky, many counties including Jefferson, the state’s largest, faced piles of mail-in ballots and reported no results. The Associated Press doesn’t expect to call the McGrath-Booker race until June 30, when Kentucky plans to release addi-tional tallies.

Even so, Booker and sup-porters gathered in Louisville chanted ’’from the ‘hood to the holler,” the slogan he hoped would help build a coalition of urban Blacks and rural whites.

“We have the opportunity to transform history,” Booker said.

In other contests, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ken-tucky easily won the Republican nomination for a seventh Senate term and will be favored in November against McGrath or Booker.

Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, won renomination, cementing her rise from obscurity to progressive icon status when she ousted Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, on track to become speaker, from the New York City district. In Virginia, retired Army Col. Daniel Gade won the GOP Senate nomination but seems certain to lose to Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in November.

A push for passage of the hate crimes bill has gained momentum after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, as well as nationwide protests of racial injustice and police brutality. Arbery, a Black man, was pursued and fatally shot near Brunswick, Georgia, in February. Three white men, including a father and son, are charged in his death.

16 THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020MORNING BREAK

Humans try to take back Thai city from monkeysAFP — LOPBURI, THAILAND

Residents barricaded indoors, rival gang fights and no-go zones for humans. Welcome to Lopburi, an ancient Thai city overrun by monkeys super-charged on junk food, whose population is growing out of control.

Pointing to the overhead netting covering her terrace, Kuljira Taechawattanawanna bemoans the monkey menace across the heart of the 13th-century city in the central province of the same name.

“We live in a cage but the monkeys live outside,” she tells AFP. “Their excrement is eve-rywhere, the smell is unbearable especially when it rains.” The fearless primates rule the streets around the Prang Sam Yod shrine in the centre of Lopburi, patrolling the tops of walls and brazenly ripping the rubber seals from car doors.

Their antics were largely tolerated as a major lure for the tourist hordes who descended on the city before the corona-virus outbreak to feed and snap selfies with the plucky animals.

But a government sterili-sation campaign is now being waged against the creatures

after the epidemic provoked an unexpected change in their behaviour.

As foreign tourism — Thai-land’s cash cow — seized up so did the flow of free bananas tossed their way, prodding the macaques to turn to violence.

Footage of hundreds of them brawling over food in the streets went viral on social media in March.

Their growing numbers — doubling in three years to 6,000 — have made an uneasy coex-istence with their human peers almost intolerable.

Some areas of the city have simply been surrendered to the monkeys.

An abandoned cinema is the macaques’ headquarters — and cemetery. Dead monkeys are laid to rest by their peers in the projection room in the cinema’s

rear and any human who enters is attacked.

Nearby, a shop owner dis-plays stuffed tiger and crocodile toys to try to scare off the monkeys, who regularly snatch spray-paint cans from his store.

No one in Lopburi seems to remember a time without the monkeys, with some specu-lating that the urban creep into nearby forest displaced the simians into the city.

Residents have taken it upon themselves to feed the macaques to prevent clashes.

But locals say the sugary diet of fizzy drinks, cereal and sweets has fuelled their lives. “The more they eat, the more energy they have... so they breed more,” says Pramot

Ketampai, who manages the Prang Sam Yod shrine’s sur-rounding areas.

The macaques’ mob fights have drawn the attention of authorities, who restarted a sterilisation programme this month after a three-year pause.

Wildlife department officers lure the animals into cages with fruit and take them to a clinic where they are anaesthetised, sterilised and left with a tattoo to mark their neutering.

They aim to fix 500 of the creatures by Friday.

But the campaign may not be enough to quell their numbers and the department has a long-term plan to build a sanctuary in another part of the city.

But that will likely be met with resistance from the human residents.

“We need to do a survey of the people living in the area first,” said Narongporn Daudduem from the wildlife department. “It’s like dumping garbage in front of their houses and asking them if they’re happy or not.” Taweesak Sris-aguan, the shop owner in Lopburi who uses stuffed animals as a deterrent to the unwanted monkey visitors, says that despite his daily joust with the creatures, he will miss them if they are moved.

“I’m used to seeing them walking around, playing on the street,” he says. “If they’re all gone, I’d definitely be lonely.”

Longtail macaques gathering outside a closed shop in the town of Lopburi, some 155km north of Bangkok, Thailand, on June 21, 2020.

Plastic ‘has entered’ Antarctic terrestrial food chainAFP —PARIS

Scientists have found bits of polystyrene in the guts of tiny, soil-dwelling organisms in the Antarctic, raising concern that microplastics pollution has already “deeply” entered the world’s most remote land-based food systems.

While the infiltration of microplastics throughout the oceans is well-known, researchers said their findings provided the first evidence of contamination in the Antarctic terrestrial food chain.

“Plastics have therefore entered even some of the most remote soil food webs on the planet, with potential risks for the whole biota and eco-systems,” said authors of the study, published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters.

They warned this could also be a new stressor for fragile polar ecosystems already facing threats from climate change.

Scientists focused on colle-mbolan Cryptopygus ant-arcticus — small organisms commonly known as springtails that can jump in a similar way to fleas, although they are not classed as insects.

They are among the few organisms adapted to survive in the harsh Antarctic condi-tions and are “often the dom-inant species” in the few areas of the region not covered by ice, the study said. They mainly eat micro-algae and lichens.

Researchers, led by scien-tists from Italy’s University of Siena, collected the creatures from a chunk of polystyrene foam covered in a green layer of micro-algae, moss and

lichens on King George Island in the South Shetland Islands.

Human activity in the area including scientific research stations, airport and military facilities, and tourism have acted to make it “one of the most contaminated regions of Antarctica”. By examining the collembola using an imaging technique with infrared and comparing the images to frag-ments of the polystyrene, the researchers “unequivocally” detected traces of the plastic in their guts.

The authors said they believed the creatures ate the plastic fragments while grazing on their usual food.

Elisa Bergami of the Uni-versity of Siena said the study showed that plastic pollution is “ubiquitous” and had reached even remote polar regions.

“Cryptopygus antarcticus has a key role in the simple Ant-arctic terrestrial food webs,” she said. “The implications of plastic ingestion by this species include the potential redistribution of microplastics through the soil profile and transfer to their common predators, the moss mites.” Bergami said contami-nation on land had drawn less attention than ocean pollution.

She called for more research into the potential tox-icity of exposure to plastic, which is associated with path-ogens, contaminants and antibiotic-resistance.

Researchers also raised concerns about styrofoam, because its porous structure could encourage the formation of moss and other growth, thereby attracting organisms.

End of an era as Olympus sells camera divisionAFP/BLOOMBERG — TOKYO

It’s the end of an era: Japan’s Olympus said yesterday it is selling its struggling camera division to focus on medical equipment — now the major portion of the storied firm’s business.

Olympus has been in the camera business since 1936, when it launched a product using the “Zuiko” lens, but it has struggled along with industry rivals as demand for traditional cameras declines, with consumers relying on increasingly sophisticated smartphone cameras.

The company said it has signed a memo of under-standing to transfer its camera business to investment fund Japan Industrial Partners, with the goal of sealing a final deal by the end of September.

The value of the sale was not specified.

The firm has produced a number of famous products, including the half-size camera Olympus Pen, the world’s first micro-cassette tape recorder Zuiko Pearlcorder, and the Olympus OM-D series, a mir-rorless interchangeable lens camera.

The company said it had tried to cut costs and develop profitable, high-end lenses to survive in an increasingly dif-ficult digital camera market.

“Despite all such efforts, Olympus’s Imaging business recorded operating losses for three consecutive fiscal years up to the term ended in March 2020,” the company said.

Olympus has, however, seen success in the medical equipment field, controlling a whopping 70 percent share of the global endoscope market.

The firm’s decision comes as many of its domestic, tra-ditional rivals including Fujifilm and Canon also aggressively expand in the medical equipment sector, under pressure from the same decline in camera sales.

Along with Panasonic Corp., Olympus popularised the Micro Four Thirds format of digital photography, which combines the portability of casual point-and-shoot cameras with the quality of more professional gear.

Water hyacinth pest chokes Iraq’s vital waterwaysAFP — AL BADAA, IRAQ

The broad leaves and delicate purple flowers floating on the Euphrates look breathtaking — but they are suffocating the waterways of Iraq, celebrated as the “land of the two rivers”.

The water hyacinth, nick-named the “Nile flower” in Iraq, is an invasive plant native to South America’s Amazon basin that has ravaged ecosystems across the world, from Sri Lanka to Nigeria.

The fast-spreading pest poses a special risk in Iraq, one of the world’s hottest countries that is already suffering from regular droughts and shrinking water resources due to overuse, pollution and upstream river dams.

The exotic flower was intro-duced to Iraq just two decades ago as a decorative plant, but now the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers are being choked by its rapid spread.

Its glossy leaves form a thick cover, absorbing up to five litres (1.3 gallons) of water per plant a day and blocking sunlight and oxygen vital to the aquatic life below.

That has made the hyacinth a formidable floral foe for Iraq’s fishermen, who sell hauls of river carp in local markets to those cooking “masgouf”, a national delicacy.

Because of the infestation, carp are dying and fishing nets get caught in the tangle of flat leaves, roots and flowers that also hampers boat travel.

The hyacinths have also impacted Iraqi farmers who already struggle with low water levels due to a series of dams built further upstream in Turkey and Iran.

The thick floating vege-tation draws down water levels and clogs irrigation channels leading to agricultural fields.

The hyacinth causes another type of pressure — a 100 square metre (1,000 square feet) patch can weigh up to five tons, putting major strain on dilapidated riverside infrastructure, Iraqi officials warn.

In the village of Al Badaa, the thick columns of a brick bridge that once spanned a wide stretch of the Euphrates are now covered by hyacinths. A dam further upstream

encloses a swamp-like patch of land also covered by the plant.

If the flowers are not removed, “the bridge and dam of Al Badaa will collapse,” said Jalil Al Abboudi, the village sheikh.

“And if they collapse, the whole water supply system will collapse.” That would deprive vast regions — all the way to Iraq’s southernmost province of Basra — of the fragile water

resources their ecosystems and economies rely on.

Iraq’s oil-dependent economy is already projected to shrink by nearly 10 percent this year, according to the World Bank.

And a health crisis sparked by a shortage of safe drinking water in the south hospitalised some 100,000 people in 2018.

Locals blame authorities for what they say have been years

of neglect and insufficient maintenance.

But Saleh Hadi, head of research at Dhi Qar’s agri-culture directorate, insisted the ministry was well aware of the dangers and working hard to mitigate them.

“The ministry of water resources is working to combat this plant mechanically by uprooting it from irrigation channels,” he said.

The perennial predicament has been made even worse this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Under normal conditions, Iraqi villagers along the banks of the Euphrates pluck out the plants by hand instead of using a chemical agent that would destroy the del icate ecosystem.

But this year, a countrywide lockdown imposed to stem COVID-19 infections has allowed the hyacinth to spread mostly unhampered.

Some vigilantes, however, are defying the curfew to fight the parasitic flower which they see as a bigger threat to their l ivel ihoods than the pandemic.

Tintin’s Hitler skit cover goes under hammerAFP — PARIS

The cover of a Tintin story that satirised Hitler’s German expansionism could go for more than ¤350,000 ($395,000) when it comes up for auction in Paris on Saturday.

In “King Ottakar’s Sceptre”, the boy detective’s Belgian creator Herge was taking a dig at the Nazi leader after his annexation of Austria in 1938.

Tintin and his faithful hound Snowy find themselves trying to foil a plot by spies to overthrow the king of the fic-tional Balkan land of Syldavia.

The story was first pub-lished in the children’s sup-plement of the conservative Brussels newspaper Le Petit Vingtieme.

The cover shows Tintin tripping as he gets out of the plane in Prague and having to grab his new friend Professor Alembick’s beard to right himself.

The drawing is part of a major sale of classic cartoon images at Artcurial auction house in the French capital, which was postponed in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Also going under the hammer is painting of Asterix and Obelix by their creator Albert Uderzo for a 1966 col-ouring book, which is expected to sell for up to ¤25,000.

But the biggest bids are expected to go to a 1954 ink drawing called “Le pirogue” (The Dugout Canoe) of the Marsupilami, the fictional South American animal invented by the legendary Belgian artist Andre Franquin.

It has an estimate of between ¤350,000 and ¤450,000.

Franquin was one of the most influential postwar comic book artists, and Marsupilami often appeared alongside the characters Spirou & Fantasio, which he drew from 1949 to 1969.

A government sterilisation campaign is now being waged against the creatures after the epidemic provoked an unexpected change in their behaviour.

A boat removes Eichhornia crassipes, commonly known as water hyacinth, from the surface of the Euphrates river, in Iraq’s Shatrah district of the southern Dhi Qar province, on June 4, 2020.

FAJR SUNRISE 03.15 am 04.45 am

W A L R U WA I S : 27o↗ 35o W A L K H O R : 26o↗ 41o W D U K H A N : 29o↗ 35o W WA K R A H : 25o↗ 40o W M E S A I E E D 25o↗ 40o W A B U S A M R A 26o↗ 37o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 05:53 – 19:41 LOW TIDE 02:53– 13:14

Misty at some places at first becomes hot daytime with

slight dust at times.

Minimum Maximum31oC 40oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.36 am06.30 pm

ASR ISHA

02.59 pm08.00 pm